Sylva britannica : or, Portraits of forest trees, distinguished for their antiquity, magnitude, or beauty

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OR

PORTRAITS OF FOREST TREES

Hail, old patrician, trees!

COWLET.

arched walks of twilight, groves

And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves
Of pine, or monumental oak.

MJLTON.

Urttanmca •

OR,

PORTRAITS OF FOREST TREES,

DISTINGUISHED FOR THEIR

ANTIQUITY, MAGNITUDE, OR BEAUTY.

DRAWN FROM NATURE
BY

JACOB GEORGE STRUTT.

Hail, old patrician trees !

COWLF.Y.

arched walks of twilight groves

And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak.

MILTON.

LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR,

8, DUKE STREET, ST. JAMES'S.

V

PRINT*!) BY A. J. VAI.PY,
lift) I.I ON COl'RT, Fl.EPT 8TRFET.

TO HIS GRACE

THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.

MY LORD DUKE,

WHEN 1 first entreated Your Grace's permission to
dedicate to the Representative of the House of Russell the fol-
lowing PORTRAITS OF FOREST TREES, I was influenced by
an irresistible association in my own mind between the stedfast-
ness and independence universally attributed to the " Lord of the
Woods, the long-surviving Oak," and the same characteristics
which have for ages past distinguished the noble family of
Bedford ; a family whose name will be always venerated in the
annals of English History, as the champions of lawful right and
well-regulated liberty ; and whose public virtues are combined in
the descendant whom I have now the honour to address, with
" all the mild charities of private life," to which, for the happiness
of those by whom he is surrounded, it is his pleasure chiefly to
devote himself.

I have only to add, that among the numerous gratifica-
tions I have derived from my work, favoured as it has been, during
its progress, with marks of public approbation far exceeding
any that my hopes had anticipated, the greatest is the opportunity
afforded me, by its completion, of testifying to the world the pride
and gratitude with which I have the honour to subscribe myself,

My Lord Duke,
Your Grace's Most Obedient

and Devoted Servant,

JACOB GEORGE STRUTT.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

IBwanmca,
OAKS.

The Panshanger Oak — Hertfordshire. Earl Cowper.
The Wolton Oak — Oxfordshire. Duke of Buckingham.
The Chandos Oak — Southgate, Middlesex. Duke of Buckingham.
The Squitch Bank Oak — Bagot's Park, Staffordshire. Lord Bagot.
The Beggar's Oak — Bagot's Park, Staffordshire. Lord Bagot.
The Salcey Forest Oak — Northamptonshire. The Earl of Euston.
The Bull Oak— Wedgenock Park, Warwickshire. The Earl of Warwick.
The Swilcar Lawn Oak — Needwood Forest, Staffordshire. His Majesty.
The Moccas Park Oak — Herefordshire. Sir George Cornewall, Bart.
The King Oak — Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. The Marquess of Ailesbury.
The Creeping Oak — Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. The Marquess of Ailesbury.
The Gospel Oak — Stoneltigh, Warwickshire.
The Cowthorpe Oak — Wetherby, Yorkshire. Lord Stourton.
The Greendale Oak — Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. The Duke of Portland.
The Shelton Oak — Shropshire.

Queen Elizabeth's Oak — Huntingfield, Suffolk. Lord Huntingfield.
Sir Philip Sidney's Oak — Per:shurst, Kent. Sir John Sidney, Bart.
Oaks in Yardley Chase, Northamptonshire. Marquess of Northampton.
The Great Oaks — Fredville, Kent. John Plurntre, Esq.

The Oaks called " The Twelve Apostles" — Burley, New Forest, Hampshire.
Lord Bolton.

ELMS.

The Chipstead Elm— Kent. John Polhill, Esq.

The Crawley Elm — Sussex.

The Elms at Mongewell, Oxfordshire, The late Bishop of Durham.

The Tutbury Wych Elm— Staffordshire.

Wych Elm— Bagot's Mill, Staffordshire. Lord Bagot.

BEECHES.

The Great Beech in Windsor Forest. His Majesty.

The Burnham Beeches — Buckinghamshire. Lord Grenville.

ASH.

The Great Ash — Wobum Park, Bedfordshire. Duke of Bedford,

xii TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHESNUTS.

The Great Tortworth Chesnut — Gloucestershire. Lord Ducie.

The Horse Chesnut — Burleigh, Lincolnshire. The Marquis of Exeter.

The Aged Chesnut called " The Four Sisters,"— Cobham Park, Kent. The

Earl of Darnley.
The Fallen Chesnut— Cobham Park, Kent. The Earl of Daniiey.

LIME.

The Lime Tree— Moor Park, Hertfordshire. Robert Williams, Esq.

POPLAR.

The Black Poplar— Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.

WILLOW.

The Abbot's Willow— Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk— John Benjafield, Esq.

CEDARS.

The Cedar — Palace School, Enfield, Middlesex. Dr. May.

The Great Cedar — Hammersmith House, Hammersmith, Middlesex.

The Cedars in the Apothecaries' Garden, Chelsea.

PLANE.

The Plane Tree— Lee Place, Blackheath, Kent.

YEWS.

The Yew Tree — Ankerwyke, Middlesex. John Blagrove, Esq.

The Yew Trees — Fountain's Abbey, Ripon, Yorkshire. Miss Lawrence.

MAPLE.

The Maple — Boldre Church. Yard, New Forest, Hampshire.

3>roncn,

The Wallace Oak — Elderslee, Renfrewshire, Archibald Spiers, Esq.
The Sycamore — Bishopton, Renfrewshire. John Maxwell, Esq.
The Wych Elms— Pollok, Renfrewshire. Sir John Maxwell, Bart.
The Scotch Fir — Dunmore Wood, Stirlingshire. Earl of Dunmore.
The Silver Fir — Roseneath. Duke of Argyll.
The Larches— Dunkeld. Duke of Athol.
The Great Yew — Fortingal. Duke of Athol.
The Great Ash— Carnock. Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, Bart.

PREFACE

ON the completion of the SYLVA BRITANNICA in the
Folio Edition, the Author was intreated by several highly
esteemed friends to add a Supplement to the work, for the
purpose of including various specimens of Trees which the
original limits did not admit of containing. But however flat-
tering those solicitations might be, his unwillingness to incur
the slightest appearance of trespassing on the liberality of his
Subscribers, formed an insuperable bar to his compliance
with them. To the wish, however, which has been very fre-
quently expressed, that the work should be brought out
anew, in a form of which neither the size nor expense should
place it beyond general circulation, not the most fastidious
delicacy could raise a scruple. The Author, therefore,
trusts that the present, comparatively small, Edition, will
afford a gratification similar to that which a lover of art
derives from comparing a finished miniature with the same
subject in full size — fidelity of representation being alike

xiv I'RKFACK.

adhered to in both instances. In the present arrangement
of the plates, and consequently of the letter-press, some
deviation has been made from the original plan ; which, as
the work came out in numbers, aimed at giving a variety of
subjects in each, in order to avoid any appearance of mono-
tony ; but as in the present form the whole is brought before
the eye at once, it has been deemed advisable to place all the
specimens of each description of tree together, as thereby
enabling a more accurate idea to be formed of their compa-
rative sizes and characteristics. In all other respects, it is
hoped that every thing which may wear the aspect of
alteration, will be better explained by the term addition or
amendment.

Hammersmith, May 25, 1830.

INTRODUCTION.

AMONG all the varied productions with which Nature
has adorned the surface of the earth, none awakens our
sympathies, or interests our imagination, so powerfully as
those venerable trees which seem to have stood the lapse of
ages — silent witnesses of the successive generations of man,
to whose destiny they bear so touching a resemblance, alike
in their budding, their prime, and their decay.

Hence, iu all ages, the earliest dawn of civilization has
been marked by a reverence of woods and groves : devotion
has fled to their recesses for the performance of her most
solemn rites ; princes have chosen the embowering shade of
some wide-spreading tree, under which to receive the depu-
tations of the neighbouring " great ones of the earth;" and
angels themselves, it is recorded, have not disdained to deliver
their celestial messages beneath the same verdant canopy.
To sit under the shadow of his own fig-tree, and drink of the
fruit of his own vine, is the reward promised, in Holy Writ,
to the righteous man ; and the gratification arising from the
sight of a favourite and long-remembered tree, is one enjoyed
in common by the peer, whom it reminds, as its branches

xvi INTRODUCTION.

wave over his head," whilst wandering in his hereditary
domains, of the illustrious^ ancestors who may have seen it
planted ; and by the peasant who recals, as he looks on it
in bis way to his daily labours, the sports of his infancy round
its venerable trunk, and regards it at once as his chronicler
and land-mark.

To perpetuate the remembrance and preserve the charac-
teristics of some of these objects, in themselves so interesting,
is the design of the SYLVA BRITANNICA : in the descrip-
tions, therefore, which accompany the plates, it will be
found, that although the minutiae of scientific detail and
botanical definitions are omitted, as unnecessary, and even
misplaced, in a work professing to be chiefly of a pictorial
description, every circumstance of local connexion, or tra-
ditional interest, has been carefully attended to ; and the
Author will be sufficiently gratified, should his performance
impart to the minds of those who may favour it with their
attention, even a small portion of the pleasure which he
has himself experienced, whilst haunting the woods and
forests, intent on delineating those varieties and pecu-
liarities of their noblest productions, which he has endea-
voured to transfer to the following representations ; with as
much of the spirit of Nature as he could command, and
with all the truth which minute remark and faithful imita-
tion may, he hopes, lay claim to, without hazarding the
imputation of undue presumption.

THE OAK.

Stabat in his ingens annoso robore quercus ;

Una nemus. OVID.

In aged majesty a mighty Oak

Towers o'er the subject trees, itself a grove.

THE OAK, admirable alike for its beauty and utility,
has ever been distinguished as the glory of the
forest; over all the trees of which it may be con-
sidered to reign with undisputed sway, both in
importance and longevity. The earliest mention
that is made of this tree is in Holy Writ : That
ancient of days the " Oak of Mamre," under which
Abraham sat in the heat of the day, and which, we
are told, " remained an object of veneration even in
the time of Constantine." We are informed also
that Saul was buried beneath the Oak in the
valley of Jabesh — a more desirable mausoleum than
the kings of Egypt afterwards raised for themselves
in their pyramids.

The Oak was held sacred by the Greeks, the
Romans, the Gauls, and the Britons. Among the

A

2 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

Romans, it was dedicated to Jupiter ; among the
ancient Britons, its consecrated shade was devoted
to the most solemn ceremonies of the Druids ; and
scarcely is it held in less veneration by their de-
scendants, who find all the interest of which it may
be despoiled by the passing away of the supersti-
tions connected with it in former ages, revived in
those present to them, by the ideas of British
power, and British independence, inseparably asso-
ciated with the image of the British Oak in the
minds of Englishmen ; who see in every acorn that
drops from its branching arms,

Those sapling Oaks which at Britannia's call
May heave their trunks mature into the main,
And float the bulwarks of her liberty.

MASON.

In proportion as the Oak is valued above all other
trees, so is the English Oak esteemed above that
of any other country, for its particular character-
istics of hardness and toughness ; qualities which
so peculiarly fit it to be the " father of ships," and
which are thus admirably expressed in two epithets
by that great poet, to whom the book of Nature,
and of the human heart, seemed alike laid open.

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulph'rous bolt,
Splitt'st the unwedgeabh and gnarled Oak,
Than the soft myrtle.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE OAK. 3

The Oak is to be found in all soils ; its growth,
however, greatly depends on the nature of that
wherein it may be planted ; for though the hardi-
ness of its infancy is such as to render choice or
care apparently unnecessary, yet as it advances
towards maturity, the depth and extent to which it
strikes its roots, make much of both its magnitude
and vigour depend on the congenial and uninter-
rupted field it may find for its powers. That it ve-
getates very rapidly under favorable circumstances,
may be seen in the instance adduced by Gilpin,
of an acorn which was sown at Beckett, the seat
of Lord Harrington, on the day of his lordship's
birth in 1717, and which, in November 1790,
contained ninety-five feet of timber, and was more
than eight feet in girth, at five feet from the ground.
It is stated by Mr. South, in his ingenious essay
on the Age and Growth of Trees, that an oak
of sixty years standing will, in twenty-four years,
double its contents of timber ; a piece of informa-
tion which may often check the progress of the
axe that would otherwise be prematurely hurled
at the fair heads of the infant hamadryads, by the
reckless hand of avarice, a passion very apt, like
" vaulting ambition," to " o'erleap itself," in its
eager anticipation of emolument. An Irish writer
on planting, mentions, with much regret, his being
an eye-witness to the fall of nearly two hundred
acres of beautiful thriving oaks in a romantic val-

4 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

ley in Wicklow, three times within the space of
twenty-four years ; the produce of each sale never
exceeding one hundred pounds, and one amounting
only to fifty pounds ; when, had the same wood been
preserved for an equal number of years, it would
have produced, at the very lowest valuation, six
thousand pounds instead of fifty. It is when stand-
ing singly that the natural character of trees is seen :
that of the Oak is rather to extend its arms, than
elevate its head ; and in this situation its timber is
more valuable than when it is in groups ; being more
compact and firm, better bent, and every way more
adapted for ship-building, the most precious of all
its purposes ; though even in this respect the in-
genuity of modern art supplies the operations of
nature, and the discovery of warping timber by
steam for the knees and other bent timbers of vessels
renders its growth a matter of less importance than it
would otherwise be : the tall Oaks are certainly
more profitable for beams and planking ; and in
sheltered groups they will reach an elevation of
eighty or a hundred feet before they begin to decay.
Mr. Rooke mentions one in Welbeck Park, known
by the name of " the Duke's Walking-Stick," since
blown down, which was one hundred and eleven feet
six inches in height, being higher than the roof of
Westminster Abbey. It is not, however, from these
Goliahs of the forest that the painter would draw his
beau ideal of sylvan forms, any more than from similar

THE OAK. 5

proportions in the human race. There are so many
points of view in which remarkable and well-known
trees are interesting, either for their beauty in their
prime, their venerableness in their decay, or the
associations connected with them, as linked with
historical recollections, that it is matter of regret
to think how few of those which are chronicled
as deserving of admiration have been secured to
remembrance by the pencil. Who can hear of Al-
fred's Oak, or Chaucer's Oak, without regretting
that not even an outline of them is in existence, for
fancy to fill up, with the enthusiasm their names
inspire ? But independently of all other consideration,
trees afford such delightful individuality, joined with
such exquisite variety of character, and bring with
them so many charming and hallowed associations
of liberty and peace, of rural enjoyment or con-
templative solitude, of the sports of childhood or
the meditations of old-age, — in short, of all that can
refresh or exalt the soul, — that it is wonderful they
have not hitherto been more decided objects of
interest to the painter and the amateur, than merely
what may arise from their introduction, rather as
accidents in pictorial delineation, than as pictures in
themselves : yet what can afford more delightful
contrast in landscape than the giant strength of the
Oak, with the flexile elegance of the ash ; the
stately tranquillity of the elm, with the tremulous
lightness of the poplar; the bright and varied

6 SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

foliage of the beech, or sycamore, with the funereal
majesty of the cedar or the yew; all differing in
form and character, as in colour :

" No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
And each its charm peculiar."

COWPER.

To a casual observer it may appear, that the view
of one tree is much like the view of another ; and
that a forest itself is more calculated to strike the
imagination, by the greatness of its aggregate, than
to interest it by the variety of its detail ; but it is
very different with the ardent contemplatist of
Nature ; with him, as is well observed by St. Pierre,
himself an unwearied admirer of her charms, " every
tree has its individual character, and every group
its harmony." Every winding branch, and every
shooting stem, has a charm for him; and he is
interested throughout each stage of the existence of
these wonderful vegetable structures, from the ten-
der sapling to the leafless withered trunk.

THE GREAT OAK OF PANSHANGER

is a fine specimen of the Oak in its prime. The
epithet of Great was attached to it more than a cen-
tury ago ; it appears, however, even now to have
scarcely reached its meridian : the waving lightness of

,<3:<-to,zr.

THE OAK. 7

its feathered branches, dipping down, towards its
stem, to the very ground, the straightnessofits trunk
and the redundancy of its foliage, all give it a
character opposite to that of antiquity ; and fit it
for the cultivated and sequestered pleasure-grounds
which form part of the domain of Earl Cowper,
at Panshanger, in Hertfordshire ; where it stands
surrounded with evergreens and lighter shrubs, of
which it seems at once the guardian and the pride.
It is nineteen feet in circumference at three feet
from the ground, and contains one thousand feet
of timber. On looking at an object at once so
graceful and so noble, raising its green head to-
wards the skies, rejoicing in the sun-shine, and
imbibing the breath of Heaven at every pore, we
cannot but feel equal wonder and admiration when
we consider the tininess of its origin, the slender-
ness of its infant state, and the daily unfolding
powers of its imperceptible, yet rapid, progress. " So
it is," says Evelyn, that great and good man, and
most accomplished scholar, whose name it is de-
lightful to mention with the respect due to it, in
the very outset of a work connected with the Sylvan
subjects, which he so much enjoyed and so ably
illustrated ; " so it is that our tree, like man, whose
inverted symbol he is, being sown in corruption
rises in glory, and by little and little ascending into
one hard erect stem of comely dimensions, becometh
a solid tower, as it were. And that this which but

8 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

lately a single ant could easily have borne to his
little cavern, should now become capable of resist-
ing the fury, and braving the rage of the most im-
petuous storms, — magni mehercle artificis, dausisse
totum in tarn exiguo, et horror est consideranti.

" For their preservation Nature has invested the
whole tribe and nation, as we may say, of vege-
tables, with garments suitable to their naked, and
exposed bodies, temper, and climate. Thus some are
clad with a coarser skin, and resist all extremes of
weather ; others with more tender and delicate skins
and scarfs, as it were, and thinner raiment. Quid
foliorum describam diversitates ? What shall we say
of the mysterious forms, variety, and variegation of
the leaves and flowers, contrived with such art, yet
without art ; some round, others long, oval, multan-
gular, indented, crisped, rough, smooth and polished,
soft and flexible ; quivering at every tremulous blast,
as if it would drop in a moment, and yet so obsti-
nately adhering, as to be able to contest against the
fiercest winds that prostrate mighty structures !
There it abides till God bids it fall : for so the wise
Disposer of things has placed it, not only for orna-
ment, but use and protection both of body and fruit,
from the excessive heat of summer, and colds of the
sharpest winters, and their immediate impressions ;
as we find it in all such places and trees, as, like
the blessed and good man, have always fruit upon
them ripe, or preparing to mature.

THE OAK. 9

" Let us examine with what care the seeds, — those
little souls of plants, quorum exilitas, as one says, vix
locum ittveniat, in which the whole and complete
tree, though invisible to our dull sense, is yet per-
fectly and entirely wrapped up, — exposed, as they
seem to be, to all those accidents of weather, storms,
and rapacious birds, are yet preserved from viola-
tion, diminution, and detriment, within their spiny,
armed, and compacted receptacles, where they sleep,
as in their causes, till their prisons let them gently
fall into the embraces of the earth, now made preg-
nant with the season, and ready for another burden :
for at the time of year she fails not to bring them
forth. With what delight have I beheld this ten-
der and innumerable offspring repullulating at the
feet of an aged tree ! from whence the suckers
are drawn, transplanted, and educated by human
industry ; and forgetting the ferity of their nature,
become civilized to all his employments.

" But I cease to expatiate farther on these wonders,
that I may not anticipate the pleasures with which
the serious contemplator on those stupendous works
of Nature, or rather God of Nature, will find himself
even rapt and transported, were his contemplations
only applied to the production of a single wood."

It is in this spirit that woods and groves should
ever be visited ; it is feelings like these that restore
them to their original representation of a verdant
Paradise, planted by God himself, for man therein

10 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

to hold communion with him, and delight in the
innocent enjoyment of his bounties ! But to return
from generals to particulars. The Panshanger Oak,
as we have seen, is characterised by elegance ; if
we wish to study the attribute of strength, by which
the lord of the woods is more peculiarly distin-
guished, we need only turn our eyes to

THE WOTTON OAK,

in the park of Wotton under Bernwood, a seat
belonging to his Grace the Duke of Buckingham.
It measures twenty-five feet in circumference, at one
foot from the ground, and at the height of twelve
feet divides into four large limbs, the principal of
which is fifteen feet in circumference. It rises to
an elevation of about ninety feet, and covers an area
of fifty yards in diameter with its branches, recalling,
to the mind of the spectator, Virgil's magnificent
description of a similar object :

quae, quantum vertice ad auras

TEtherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit.
Ergo non hyemes illani, non flabra, neque imbres
Convellunt : immota manet, multosque nepotes,
Multa virum volvens durando saecula vincit.
Turn fortes late ramos et brachia tendons
Hue illuc, media ipsa ingentem sustinet iimbram.

whose roots descend

As low towards Pluto's realms, as high in, air

THE OAK. 11

Its massive branches rise. The utmost rage
Of wintry storms howls o'er its strength in vain.
Successive generations of mankind,
Revolving ages, flourish and decay,
Yet still immoveable it stands, and throws
Its vigorous limbs around, and proudly bears
With firm and solid trunk its stately form,
A mighty canopy of thickest shade.

VIRGIL, Georg. n. 291.

With full as much truth of nature, though with
less pomp of diction, is the Oak described, flourishing,
vigorous, rejoicing among his peers, in the following,
lines of " Dan Chaucer," the father of our verse,
the " pure well of English undefiled ;" from which
so many succeeding bards have drank their first
draughts of poetic inspiration :

" A plesaunt grove . . .

In which were Okis grete, streight as a line,
Undir the which the grass so freshe of hew
Was newly sprong, and an eight fote, or nine,
Every tree well fro his fellow grew,
With braunches brode, ladin with levis new,
That, sprongin out agen, the sonne shene,
Some very rede ; and some a glad light grene."

CHAUCER :— The Floure and the Leafe.

Perhaps, there is no where to be found so fine an
illustration of the extent to which the oak will throw
its broad arms and leafy canopies, when unintruded
upon by other stems, as in —

12 SYLVA BR1TANN1CA.

THE CHANDOS OAK,

which stands in the pleasure-grounds of Michendon
House, at Southgate, the property of His Grace the
Duke of Buckingham. Its girth at one foot from
the ground is eighteen feet three inches ; at three
feet, it is fifteen feet nine inches. The height of
the stem to the branches is eight feet ; and at that
distance from the ground it is seventeen feet in girth.
It is sixty feet in height, and the extremity of its
boughs includes a line of one hundred and eighteen
feet. It is in this last particular that its great
attraction consists. When it is in the full pride of
its foliage, it strikes the spectator with sensations
similar to those inspired by the magnificent Banyan
trees of the East. Its boughs bending to the
earth, with almost artificial regularity of form and
equidistance from each other, give it the appearance
of a gigantic tent ; with verdant draperies, drawn
up to admit the refreshing breezes that curl the
myriads of leaves which form altogether a mass of
vegetable beauty and grandeur, scarcely to be
equalled by any other production of the same
nature in the kingdom. It is a magnificent living
canopy — nulli penetrabilis astro — impervious to the
day. If, however, in the full pride of summer, this
tree presents so refreshing a spectacle of breathing

THE OAK. W

coolness, and amplitude of shade, it affords a still
more singular and striking one in the invigorating
sharpness of an autumnal morning ; when its thou-
sand boughs, and every pendent twig, are gemmed
with crystals, reflecting the rays which no longer
scorch, and dazzle only to please. The following
lines, inspired by contemplating it under this aspect,
and written beneath the branches thus clothed in
icicles, whose brief glories were rapidly melting
away before an ascending sun, will not, it is pre-
sumed, be unacceptable to the lover of fanciful
imagery and harmonious numbers.

Were now my spirit lapp'd in dreaming mood,

I verily might think, majestic tree !

That I, Louisa near, in company
Of some most fair and beauteous Naiad stood
In her own temple, 'neath the fountain flood ;

In her own temple, roof'd all gorgeously

With gem and chrysolite — or I might be
Embower'd with Fairy-queen in magic wood,
The small leaves raining down a silver light,
About our couch — or, under ceiling bright,

Starr'd with the twinklings of ten thousand eyes,

Such as illume the Houri's paradise ;
Or else — but ah ! so wondrous fair the sight,

That fancy in the mifiiiisliM effort dies !

14 SYLVA BRTTANNICA.

THE SQUITCH BANK OAK

also is in its full vigour and beauty. Its circum-
ference at the roots is forty-three feet ; and at five
feet high it is twenty-one feet nine inches. It is
thirty-three feet in height to the crown ; and
twenty-eight feet above ; in all sixty- one feet. The
butt contains six hundred and sixty feet nine inches
of timber ; the principal limb seventy-nine feet six
inches ; and the other limbs, fourteen in number,
two hundred and seventy-two feet seven inches ;
making its total contents one thousand and twelve
feet ten inches of solid timber.

This majestic tree stands in Bagot's Park, about
four miles from Blithfield, near Litchfield, the seat
of the Right Honorable Lord Bagot ; who may be
regarded as one of the greatest encouragers of Oak
timber in the kingdom, having planted two millions
of acorns on his estates in Staffordshire and Wales ;
which display, on every side, scenes of sylvan
beauty and grandeur that can scarcely be sur-
passed. Bagot's Park, in particular, abounds with
rich and graceful variety of scenery. The gardens
bloom with a thousand sweets ; the birds warble
among them in notes of gratitude to the fresh and
balmy air. The lawns, clothed with oaks and
clumps of trees, exhibit the most soft and delicious

THE OAK. 15

verdure, and present at every turn splendid views
over a rich and woody country. The Park itself
abounds with magnificent and ancient timber ; and
is bordered with the romantic cliffs that rise on the
banks of the river Dove. The stilness of antique
trees and forest glades is relieved by animated
groups of red deer, whose characteristics peculiarly
suit the features of the scene, and by a yet more
striking race of wild goats, originally presented by
Richard the Second to one of Lord Bagot's an-
cestors. It was amid scenes so inspiring and de-
lightful, and under the encouraging influence of
attentions from their noble owner, of which he must
always retain a grateful remembrance, that the
Author of this work made his first sketch for it,
well pleased, as Horace has expressed it —

" Taciturn sylvas inter reptare salubres :"

And he trusts he shall not be accused of an undue
degree of egotism, if he so far yields to the impulse
of his feelings, as to acknowledge in this place the
gratification he has derived from finding his attempt
to form a national record of some of the principal
Forest Trees that peculiarly ornament England
above all other countries, so generously received by
the public, as well as by the distinguished indi-
viduals from whose domains his subjects have been
principally taken.

16 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE BEGGAR'S OAK

is a fine sample of the real Park Oak, unpruned,
unpollarded, throwing its broad arms around in all
the freedom and majesty of its nature. It is sup-
posed to have received its name from the accommo-
dation it is so well calculated to afford in its ample
canopy, " star-proof," and its moss-grown roots,
to the weary mendicants who may in former times
have been tempted to seek the shade of its branches
for repose or shelter. Its girth at five feet from the
ground is twenty feet ; the circumference of the
roots which project above the surface of the ground
is sixty-eight feet, and the branches extend about
sixteen yards from the trunk in every direction. It
contains by admeasurement eight hundred and
seventy-seven cubic feet of timber, which, including
the bark, would have produced, at a price offered
for it in 1812, the sumof202/. 14*. 9d. But this
noble tree, as well as many other of the " giants of
the forest," with which Bagot's Park abounds, are
secure from the axe, under the protection of their
present munificent proprietor ; who best shows his
sense of the value of the woody domains received
from his ancestors, by endeavouring to secure the
same gratification to his posterity ; annually planting
a large portion of his estates, with a taste and zeal

THE OAK. 17

which well deserve to be imitated, by all such landed
proprietors as may be actuated by a laudable am-
bition to make their private possessions a source of
public ornament and of national wealth. And that
appeals may not be wanting to self-love, as well as
to considerations of the welfare of posterity, let us
hear what is said on the subject by Evelyn, whose
own green and prosperous old-age verified the truth
of his remarks: "And now, lastly, to encourage those
to plant that have opportunity, and those who inno-
cently and with reluctance are forced to cut down,
and endeavour to supply the waste with their utmost
industry. It is observed that such planters are
often blessed with health and old-age. Of their
extraordinary longevity we have given abundant in-
stances in this discourse ; and it seems to be so
universally remarked, that as Paulus Venetus, that
great traveller, reports, the Tartarian astrologers
affirm nothing contributes more to men's long lives
than the planting of many trees. HJEC SCRIPSI
OCTAGENARIUS; and shall, if God protract my
years, and continue my health, be continually plant-
ing, till it shall please him to transplant me into
those glorious regions above, the celestial Paradise,
planted with perennial groves and trees, bearing
immortal fruit; for such is the tree of life, which
they who do his commandments have right to."
Sylva, p. 645.

Having thus far dwelt on the Oak in its vigour

B

18 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

and maturity, we must next consider it in the pe-
riod, far more interesting to the painter, the poet,
or the moralist — of its decay. Who can look upon
an object like

THE SALCEY FOREST OAK,

without feeling contemplations awakened in his
breast, on the vicissitudes of ages, and the perish-
able nature of all created forms ; which must, for
the moment at least, elevate his thoughts to higher
states of existence, where good cannot deteriorate,
and is secure of endurance.

Salcey Forest is in Northamptonshire ; between
the forests of Rockingham on the North, and of
. Whittlebury on the South-west, by which the wood-
land part of that county is divided into three main
parcels. Of these Salcey Forest is the smallest;
being not more than a mile in breadth, and scarcely
a mile and a half in length : but its verdant appear-
ance, enlivened by the variety of spreading thorns,
which spring among its majestic Oaks, renders it,
particularly in the beginning of the summer, when
they put forth their white blossoms, and scent the
air with their fragrance, a delightful haunt for the
lovers of sylvan scenery. Camden speaks of it as a
place set apart for game ; and even in the present
day, its numerous troops of fallow deer, its tempting

THE OAK. 19

copses, and picturesque herds of cattle, give it an
animation not less attractive to the sportsman than
to the painter.

The Oak which maintains so proud a pre-eminence
over all its brethren in this forest, was, in 1794,
according to the account of H. Rooke, Esq. F.S.A.,
in circumference at the bottom, where there are no
projecting spurs, forty-six feet ten inches ; at one
yard from the ground, thirty-nine feet ten inches ;
at two yards, thirty-five feet nine inches ; at three
yards, thirty-five feet. Circumference within the
trunk, near the ground, twenty-nine feet; at one
yard from the bottom, twenty-four feet seven inches ;
at two yards, eighteen feet six inches ; at three yards,
sixteen feet two inches. The height within the
hollow was at that time fourteen feet eight inches,
and the height of the tree itself, on the outside to the
top branch, thirty-nine feet three inches. Of its
age, a calculation may be formed from the fol-
lowing observations of the ingenious Thomas South,
Esq., communicated in his fourth Letter on the
Growth of Oaks, addressed to the Bath Society.
Speaking of an ancient hollow tree, the Bull Oak,
on Oakly Farm, he informs us, that about twenty
years before the time of his writing, 1783, he
had the curiosity to measure this tree. " Its
head," he proceeds to relate, " was as green and
vigorous last summer, as it was at that time ; and
though hollow as a tube, it has increased in its

20 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

measure, some inches. Upon the whole, this bears
every mark of having been a short-stemmed,
branchy tree, of the first magnitude ; spreading its
arms in all directions round it. Its aperture is a
small, ill-formed gothic arch, hewn out, or enlarged
with an axe, and the bark now curls over the
wound — a sure sign that it continues growing : and
hence it is evident, that the hollow oaks of enormous
size recorded by antiquaries, did not obtain such
bulk whilst sound ; for the shell increases when the
substance is no more. The blea, and the inner
bark, receive annual tributes of nutritious particles,
from the sap, in its progress to the leaves ; and from
thence acquire a power of extending the outer bark,
and increasing its circumference slowly. Thus a
tree, which at three hundred years old was sound,
and five feet in diameter, like the Langley Oak,
would, if left to perish gradually, in its thousandth
year become a shell of ten feet diameter."

"Hence," says Mr. Rooke, "we find by this
curious investigation of the growth of Oaks, that a
tree of about thirty feet in circumference may be
supposed to have attained the age of a thousand
years. Upon this calculation we may conclude,
that the Great Salcey Forest Oak, which is only
within two inches of forty-seven feet in circum-
ference, cannot be less than fifteen hundred years
old." It is equally probable that it should be more.
Mr. Marsham calculated the Bentley Oak to be

THE OAK. 21

fifteen hundred years old, when it was four hundred
and eight inches in circumference ; whereas the
Salcey Forest Oak is, as we see, five hundred and
sixty-two.

The following lines, written by Cowper on the
Yardley Oak, may be applied, with equal truth, to
the Salcey Forest Oak, as a proof how closely the
descriptive powers of poetry may compete with the
imitative ones of painting, to present an object to
the mind with the most exact fidelity of nature :

" Embowell'd now, and of thy ancient self
Possessing nought but the scoop'd rind that seems
An huge throat, calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbidd'st
The feller's toil, which thou could'st ill requite.
Yet is thy root secure, sound as the rock ;
A quarry of stout spars and knotted fangs,
Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.
* * » » • » »

Thine arms have left thee, winds have rent them off

Long since ; and rovers of the forest wild,

With bow and shaft, have burnt them. Some have left

A splinter'd stump, bleach'd to a snowy white;

And some memorial none, where once they grew.

Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth

Proof, not contemptible, of what she can,

Even where death predominates. The spring

Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force,

Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood,

So much thy juniors ; who their birth receiv'd

Haifa millennium since the date of thine." COWPER.

22 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE BULL OAK

in Wedgenock Park, Warwickshire, is the property
of the Earl of Warwick. " Bull-Oaks," says Mr.
South, whose remarks on the growth of Oaks, as
elicited by his observations on this tree, we have
just given, " are thus denominated from the no un-
common circumstance of bulls taking shelter within
them; which these animals effect, not by going in
and turning round, but by retreating backwards
into the cavity, till the head, only, projects at the
aperture. The one I am about to particularize stands
in the middle of a pasture, bears the most venerable
marks of antiquity, gives the name compounded
of itself and its situation to the farm on which it
grows, viz. Oakly Farm, and was the favourite retreat
of a bull. Twenty people, old and young, have
crowded into it at a time; a calf being shut up
there for convenience, its dam, a two-year-old
heifer, constantly went in to suckle it, and left suf-
ficient room for milking her. It is supposed to be
near a thousand years old ; the body is nothing but
a shell, covered with burly protuberances ; the
upper part of the shaft is hollow like a chimney ;
it has been mutilated of all its limbs, but from their
stumps arise a number of small branches, forming a
bushy head, so remarkable for fertility, that in
years of plenty it has produced two sacks of acorns

THE OAK. 23

in a season." The dimensions of this venerable
remnant of antiquity are, at one yard from the
ground, eleven yards one foot ; one foot above the
ground, thirteen yards one foot; six feet from the
ground, twelve yards one foot ; broadest side, seven
yards five inches ; close to the ground, eighteen
yards, one foot, seven inches ; height of the trunk
about four yards one foot.

The following lines, from Spenser, describe its
present condition so admirably, that they may well
be admitted as an adjunct to the pencil which has
endeavoured to delineate it :

There grew an aged tree on the green,
A goodly Oak some time had it been,
With arms full strong, and largely display'd,
But of their leaves they were disarray'd ;
The body big, and mightily pight,
Thoroughly rooted, and of wondrous height :
Whilom had been the king of the field,
And mochel mast to the husband did yield;
And with his nuts larded many swine,
But now the gray moss marred his rine ;
His bared boughs were beaten with storms,
His top was bald and wasted with worms ;
His honour decay'd, his branches sere.

SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

24 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE SWILCAR LAWN OAK

stands in Needwood Forest, in Staffordshire. It is
known, by historical documents, to be more than
six hundred years old ; and it is still far from being
in the last stage of decay. Its girth, at the height
of six feet from the ground, is twenty-one feet four
inches and a half. Fifty-four years ago it was
girthed in the same place, by a labouring man still
living, and measured at that time nineteen feet. It
is a magnificent tree, and has the advantage of
looking fully as large as it really is. " Few per-
sons," says Mr. Burgess, in his interesting remarks
on the Oak, " save those to whom habit has ren-
dered it familiar, form any thing like just estimates
of the veritable size of trees. The situations in
which they are commonly seen, harmonizing with
the illimitable expanse of heaven, and the wildest
extent of forest scenery, or of mountain heights,
lessen, ideally, their intrinsic bulk ; nor is it till sin-
gled from the surrounding landscape, nor even then,
until the theodolite and rule proclaim their sums,
that we become persuaded of their vast extent :
nay, figures themselves, to the generality of the
world, convey but imperfect conceptions of length
and breadth, and height and girth. Some more fa-
miliar representatives are wanted to prove that a
majestic tree, which is only in moderate proportion,
as an ornament to nature in the country, is really

,

,m

. - ,. 5>^

«*»*";• ^j--<sEsa

Sfl

THE OAK. 25

an enormous mass, and would show as a large and
glorious structure among the dwellings and palaces
of man in town."

The Swilcar Lawn Oak has been celebrated in
poetic strains by several modern bards ; among whom
may be particularised Mr. Mundy, whose mention
of it, in his poem of " Needwood Forest," drew
forth the following elegant compliment to himself,
and animated apostrophe to the venerable subject
of his verse, from the pen of Dr. Darwin :—

" Hail, stately Oak ! whose wrinkled trunk hath stood,
Age after age, the sov'reign of the wood ;
You, who have seen a thousand springs unfold
Their ravell'd buds, and dip their flowers in gold ;
Ten thousand times yon moon re-light her horn,
And that bright eye of evening gild the morn !

" Say, when of old the snow-hair'd druids pray'd
With mad-eyed rapture in yon hallow'd shade,
While to their altars bards and heroes throng,
And crowding nations join the ecstatic song ;
Did e'er such dulcet notes arrest your gales,
As Mundy pours along the list'ning vales ?

" Yes, stately Oak, thy leaf-wrapp'd head sublime,
Ere long must perish in the wrecks of time ;
Should o'er thy brow the thunders harmless break,
And thy firm roots, in vain, the whirlwinds shake,
Yet must thou fall : — thy with'ring glories sunk,
Arm after arm shall leave thy mould'ring trunk !
But Mundy's verse shall consecrate thy name,
And rising forests envy Swilcar's fame ;
Green shall thy germs expand, thy branches play,
And bloom for ever in th' immortal lay."

26 SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

THE MOCCAS PARK OAK

is thirty-six feet in circumference, at three feet from
the ground ; it stands in the Park of Moccas Court,
on the banks of the Wye, in Herefordshire; the
seat of Sir George Amyand Cornewall, Bart., who
traces his ancestry from Richard, second son of
King John, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Ro-
mans. The whole estate, from the very nature of
its situation, forming part of the borders between
England and Wales, is fraught with historical asso-
ciations, which extend themselves, with pleasing
interest, to this ancient " monarch of the wood,"
among whose boughs the war-cry has often rever-
berated in former ages, and who has witnessed
many a fierce contention, under our Henries and our
Edwards, hand to hand and foot to foot, for the do-
mains on which he still survives, in venerable, though
decaying majesty, surrounded by aged denizens of
the forest, the oldest of whom, nevertheless, com-
pared with himself, seem but as of yesterday. The
stilness of the scene, at the present time, forms a
soothing contrast to the recollections of the turbu-
lent past ; and the following lines are so in harmony
with the reflections it is calculated to awaken, that
it is hoped the transplanting of them, from the pages

THE OAK. 27

of a brother amateur of the forests, to the page before
us, will not displease either him or the reader :

" Than a tree, a grander child earth bears not.
What are the boasted palaces of man,
Imperial city or triumphal arch,
To forests of immeasurable extent,
Which Time confirms, which centuries waste not ?
Oaks gather strength for ages ; and when at last
They wane, so beauteous in decrepitude,
So grand in weakness ! E'en in their decay
So venerable ! 'Twere sacrilege t' escape
The consecrating touch of time. Time watched
The blossom on the parent bough. Time saw
The acorn loosen from the spray. Time passed
While, springing from its swaddling shell, yon Oak
The cloud-crown'd monarch of our woods, by thorns
Environ'd, scaped the raven's bill, the tooth
Of goat and deer, the schoolboy's knife, and sprang
A royal hero from his nurse's arms.
Time gave it seasons, and Time gave it years,
Ages bestow'd, and centuries grudged not :
Time knew the sapling when gay summer's breath
Shook to the roots the infant Oak, which after
Tempests moved not. Time hollow'd in its trunk
A tomb for centuries : and buried there
The epochs of the rise and fall of states,
The fading generations of the world,
The memory of man."

28 SYLVA BRITANMCA.

THE KING OAK

forms a conspicuous feature in Savernake Forest,
one of the most interesting spots in the kingdom, to
the lovers of wild wood scenery. Whilst exploring
its tangled haunts and gazing on the massive trunks
that every where throw their aged arms across his
path, the imagination of the spectator wafts him
back to the days of William the Conqueror, and all
the vaunted privileges of the chase. It belongs to
the Marquess of Aylesbury, and is almost the only
forest in England in the hands of a subject ; by
whom, in strict language, only a chase is tena-
ble. The King Oak, its most venerable ornament,
spreads its branches over a diameter of sixty yards,
and is twenty-four feet in girt. The trunk is quite
hollow, and altogether its age appears to warrant
the idea that it may have witnessed in its infancy
those rites and sacrifices of our Saxon ancestors
which were held in these shadowy recesses, at once
to increase their solemnity, and to shield them from
the profane eyes of vulgar observers. Could this
" eldest of forms" be questioned on its origin, we
may imagine its reply in the often-quoted lines :

" In my great grandsire's trunk did Druids dwell ;
My grandsire with the Roman Empire fell :
Myself a sapling when my father bore
Victorious Edward to the Gallic shore."

THE OAK. 29

Gilpin rightly observes, that of all species of land-
scape there is none which so universally captivates
mankind as forest scenery. However the agricul-
turist or the political economist may remind us, that
our prosperity as a nation must increase in pro-
portion as the plough and the scythe gain ground
upon the woods, we still, as individuals, cling in ima-
gination to those haunts of liberty and contem-
plation, which afforded man his first shelter; still
delight in their endless variety of hues and forms,
and vocal sounds ; and find ourselves alternately
elevated by the solemnity of their solitudes, or
cheered by the animation of the occupations and
habits of the tribes connected with them. Out of
ninety English forests, enumerated by Gilpin, how
few remain as present ornaments and nurseries of
future wealth ! Who would not be grieved to see
such noble sylvan districts as the forests of Windsor
and Marlborough denuded and laid waste — a scene
of desolation, such as the site of a forest no longer a
forest peculiarly exhibits? We may be allowed,
therefore, to lament, that " of all sublunary things,
the woodland scene, which is amongst the most
beautiful, should be among the most perishable :"

« .. Woods

Which shelter'd once the stag and gristly boar,
Scarce to the timid hare now refuge lend."

At a little distance from the King Oak is—

30 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE CREEPING OAK,

so called from the circumstance of one of its
main limbs having crept so closely to the earth in
its youth, that in its old age it actually reclines the
weight of its increasing years upon the ground ;
forming, in doing so, a pleasing irregularity of out-
line very agreeable to the eye of a painter, which
naturally abhorreth the idea of a straight line, as
much as Descartes did that of a vacuum. Never
were noble avenues and " alleys green" seen in
more beauty than on the lovely day, in autumn,
when this sketch was made amid their variegated
shades. " Every season has its peculiar product,
and is pleasing or admirable from causes that vari-
ously affect our different temperaments or dispo-
sitions ; but there are accompaniments in an autum-
nal morning's woodland walk, that call for all our
notice and admiration : the peculiar feeling of the
air, and the solemn grandeur of the scene around
us, dispose the mind to contemplation and remark :
there is a silence in which we hear every thing : a
beauty that will be observed. The stump of an old
oak is a very landscape — with rugged alpine steeps
bursting through forests of verdant mosses, with
some pale denuded branchless lichen, like a scathed
oak, creeping up the sides or crowning the summit.

THE OAK. 31

Rambling with unfettered grace, the tendrils of the
briary festoon, with its brilliant berries, green, red,
yellow, the slender sprigs of the hazel or the thorn ;
it ornaments their plainness, and receives a support
its own feebleness denies. The agaric, with all its
hues, its shades, its elegant variety of forms, ex-
pands its cone, sprinkled with the freshness of the
morning ; a transient fair, a child of decay, that
" sprang up in a night and will perish in a night."
The squirrel, agile with life and timidity, gambolling
round the root of an ancient beech, its base over-
grown with the dewberry, blue with unsullied fruit,
impeded in his frolic sports, half angry, darts up the
silvery bole again, to peep and wonder at the strange
intruder on his haunts. The jay springs up, and
screaming, tells us of danger to her brood, — the
noisy tribe repeat the call, — are hushed, and leave
us. The loud laugh of the woodpecker, joyous and
vacant : the hammering of the nut-hatch, cleaving its-
prize in the chink of some dry bough : the humble
bee, torpid on the disk of the purple thistle . . . Then
falls the "sere and yellow leaf," parting from its
spray without a breeze tinkling in the boughs, and
rustling, scarce audibly, along, rests at our feet and
tells that we part too." — Journal of a Naturalist,
p. 117.

32 SLYVA BR1TANNICA.

THE GOSPEL OAK.

The custom of making the boundaries of parishes,
by the neighbouring inhabitants going round them
once a-year, and stopping at certain spots to per-
form different ceremonies, in order that the localities
might be impressed on the memories of the young,
as they were attested by the recollections of the old,
is still common in various parts of the kingdom.
The custom itself is of great antiquity, and is sup-
posed by some to have been derived from the feast
called Terminalia, which was dedicated to the God
Terminus, who was considered as the guardian of
fields and land-marks, and the promoter of friend-
ship and peace among men. Its beneficial effects,
and social influence, are thus described by Withers,
in the quaint style of two centuries by-gone :—

" That every man might keep his own possessions,
Our fathers used, in reverent processions,
(With zealous prayers, and with praiseful cheere,)
To walk their parish limits once a-year ;
And well-known marks (which sacrilegious hands
Now cut or breake) so bordered out their lands,
That every one distinctly knew his owne ;
And many brawles now rife, were then unknowne."

It was introduced among Christians about the
year 800, by the pious Avitus, Bishop of Vienna, in
a season of dearth and calamity, and has been con-

»-•*

THE OAK. 33

tinued since his time by the different clergy. The
minister of each parish, accompanied by his church-
wardens and parishioners, going round the bounds
and limits of his parish in Rogation Week, or on one
of the three days before Holy Thursday, (the feast
of our Lord's Ascension,) and stopping at remarkable
spots and trees, to recite passages from the Gospels,
and implore the blessing of the Almighty on the fruits
of the earth, and for the preservation of the rights and
properties of the parish. The learned and excellent
Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, left a fine model of
prayer for these occasions ; and it must have been a
soothing sight to witness the devotional feelings of
the multitude, thus called forth in the simplicity of
patriarchal worship in the open air, and surrounded
by the works of God.

Maluit umbrosam quercum :

and it would be difficult to select a more fit object
than the broad oak to mark their resting place, and
to serve as an altar beside which to offer up their
prayers ; as in times of yore the worshippers of God
were wont to do, in their solemn groves, before
temples made by hands were built to Him, and the
place of His holy tabernacle fixed by His own divine
revelation.

Many of these Gospel trees are to be found in
different parts of the country ; about Wolverhampton
in particular, the boundaries and township of the
parish are marked by them, and they are preserved

34 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

with the greatest care and attention. That they
often possessed a double claim on the regard of the
young, by being made the witnesses of vows not
likely to be forgotten, we may gather from the plain-
tive injunction Herrick puts into the mouth of one
of his lovers, in his Hesperides :

Dearest, bury me

Under that holy oke, or GOSPEL TREE ;

Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon

Me, when thou yeerly go'st Procession."

The Gospel Oak near Stoneleigh stands in a little
retired coppice, the solitude of which is equally
favourable to thought and to devotion, to the reveries
of the philosopher on ages past, and the contem-
plation of the Christian on the ages to come.

Lucos et ipsa silentia adoramus.

" In the fresh fields, His own Cathedral meet,

Built by Himself, star-roof'd, and hung with green,
Wherein all breathing things, in concord sweet,
Organ'd by winds, perpetual hymns repeat."

THE COWTHORPE OAK.

This gigantic and venerable tree stands at the
extremity of the village of Cowthorpe, near We-
therby, in Yorkshire, in a retired field, sheltered
on one side by the ancient church belonging to the
place, and on another by a farm-house ; the rural

THE OAK. 35

occupations of which exactly accord with the cha-
racter of the Oak, whose aged arms are extended
towards it with a peculiar air of rustic vigour, re-
tained even in decay : like some aged peasant,
whose toil-worn limbs still give evidence of the
strength which enabled him to acquit himself of the
labours of his youth. It is mentioned by the late
Doctor Hunter, in his edition of Evelyn's Sylva ; in
the following note on a passage respecting the ex-
traordinary size of an Oak in Sheffield Park : " Nei-
ther this, nor any of the Oaks mentioned by Mr.
Evelyn, bear any proportion to one now growing at
Cowthorpe, near Wetherby, upon an estate belong-
ing to the Right Hon. Lady Stourton — the dimen-
sions are almost incredible : within three feet of
the surface it measures sixteen yards, and close by
the ground twenty-six yards : its height in its pre-
sent ruinous state (1770') is almost eighty-five feet,
and its principal limb extends sixteen yards from
the bole. Throughout the whole tree the foliage is
extremely thin, so that the anatomy of the ancient
branches may be distinctly seen in the height of
summer. When compared to this, all other trees
are but children of the Forest." — Book in. page 500.
According to this statement, it should appear that
the Cowthorpe Oak was, at that time, ten feet more
in girth than the Powis Oak in Bromfield Wood,
near Ludlow, which measured sixty-eight feet round,
and nearly forty feet more than the Swilcar Oak ;

36 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

that is, more than double the size of that tree
which, as already stated, there is reason to believe
is upwards of six hundred years old, and four times
and one-third as large as the old oak in Langley
Woods, which tradition traced for upwards of a
thousand years. In 1829 it was measured by the
Rev. Thomas Jessop of Bilton Hall, who thus states
the result in a letter to Mr. Burgess : " The Cow-
thorpe or Calthorpe Oak is still in existence, though
very much decayed : at present it abounds with
foliage and acorns, the latter have long stalks, the
leaves short ones. The dimensions of the tree, ac-
cording to my measurement, are as follow : height
forty-five feet, (little more than half what it was
fifty-three years ago, and then its chief limbs had
been destroyed ;) circumference close to the ground,
(not including the projecting angles,) sixty feet ;
ditto at one yard high, forty-five feet : extent of
principal branch, fifty feet, (an increase of two feet
in more than half a century ;) mean circumference
of ditto, eight feet. I am inclined to think," adds
he, " that the original dimensions of this venerable
plant were those given in Evelyn's Sylva. The
oldest persons in this neighbourhood speak of the
tree as having been much higher ; and were we to
take into account the angles at the base formed by
projections from the trunk, the lower periphery
might be made out twenty-six yards. It is said by
the inhabitants of the village, that seventy persons

THE OAK. 37

at one time got within the hollow of the trunk ; but,
on inquiry, I found many of these were children ;
and, as the tree is hollow throughout to the top, I
suppose they sat on each other's shoulders: yet,
without exaggeration, I believe the hollow capable
of containing forty men." The area occupied by
the Cowthorpe Oak, where the bottom of its trunk
meets the earth, exceeds, as Mr. Burgess remarks,
the ground-plot of that majestic column of which an
Oak is confessed to have been the prototype ; namely,
the Eddystone Light-house, raised by the ingenious
architect, Mr. Smeaton, after a model drawn from
an attentive study of the principles on which Nature
enables her gigantic vegetable structures to with-
stand, for centuries, the furious blasts that often lay
prostrate in a moment the proudest works of man :
sections of the stem of the one would, at several
heights, nearly agree with sections of the curved and
cylindrical portions of the shaft of the other ; and a
chamber of equal extent, or larger than either of those
in the light-house, might be hollowed out of its trunk.
It is undoubtedly the largest tree at present known
in the kingdom, and cannot be looked upon without
veneration and regard.

" When the huge trunk whose bare and forked arms
Pierced the mid sky, now prone, shall bud no more,
Still let the massy ruin, like the bones
Of some majestic hero, be preserved

Unviolated and revered

Whilst the gray father of the vale, at eve,

38 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

Returning from his sweltering summer task,

To tend the new-mown grass, or raise the sheaves,

Along the western slope of yon gay hill,

Shall stop to tell his listening sons how far

She stretch'd around her thick-leaved ponderous boughs,

And measure out the space they shadowed."

DAVY.

THE GREENDALE OAK.

There is, perhaps, no spot in England where once
were to be found so many ancient and magnificent
Oaks as in the Park of Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire,
one of the seats of his Grace the Duke of Portland ;
insomuch that Mr. Rooke, a fellow of the Anti-
quarian Society, and a great lover of forest sub-
jects, thought them worthy, forty years ago, of a
detailed account, wherein he gave the charac-
teristics of many which have now laid their leafy
honours low. But the Greendale Oak, however,
still remains, little altered in its general aspect by
the lapse of half a century since it was described
as a ruin. In the year 1724, a road-way was
cut through its venerable trunk, higher than the
entrance to Westminster Abbey, and sufficiently
capacious to permit a carriage and four horses to
pass through it. A print of it was published at that
time, in which it scarcely varies from its present
appearance, excepting that the artist has sought to
heighten the effect by choosing the moment when
one of the old-fashioned equipages of the day, with
its four long-tailed appendages was passing through

THE OAK. 39

the cavity. In 1790, Mr. Rooke gave the measure-
ment of it as follows : — The circumference of the
trunk above the arch, is thirty-five feet three inches ;
height of the arch, ten feet three inches ; width
about the middle, six feet three inches ; height to
the top branch, fifty-four feet. Evelyn, and after
him Hunter, makes some slight variation in these
measurements. Evelyn calculates that two hun-
dred and twenty-five head of cattle might stand
within the shadow of its branches ; but at the pre-
sent day the herd must be indeed diminished if
their owner should mean them to escape the heat of
the meridian sun, from the shelter of its few remain-
ing branches and thinly scattered foliage. It is
no way surprising that this should be the case, as it
appears that the loss of them, naturally attendant
on the chances of elemental war, and the ravages of
time, was anticipated from other causes ; among
which may be reckoned the partiality of the Countess
of Oxford to the tree, of which the family might
well be proud, insomuch that she had, as Mr. Rooke
informs us, " several cabinets made out of the
branches, and ornamented with inlaid representa-
tions of the oak, with the following inscriptions :

Saspe sub hac Dryades festas duxere choreas :
Saepe etiam, manibus nexis ex ordine, trunci
Circuiere modum ; mensuraque roboris ulnas
Quinque ter implebat ; nee non et cetera tanto
Sylva sub hac, sylva quanto jacet herba sub orani."

OVID MET.

40 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

" When all the woodland nymphs their revels play'd,
And footed sportive rings around its shade ;
Not fifteen cubits could encompass round
The ample trunk on consecrated ground ;
As much its height the other trees exceeds,
As they o'ertop the grass and humbler weeds."

" Lo the oake that hath so long a norishing
Fro' the time that it ginneth first to spring,
And hath so long a life, as we may see,
Yet, at the last, wasted is the tree."

CHAUCER.

We will now, dismissing these venerable patriarchs
of the forest, consider some of their brethren, which,
if inferior to them in years and bulk, yet possess
equal claims on notice, as being connected with
names and incidents familiar in our historical records,
or in the traditions of " olden times." The forests
of " Merry England" have, from time immemorial,
been the scene of bold adventure and romantic inci-
dent; from the period when the legions of Caesar
disturbed the aged Druids in their secret rites, and
the Roman axe invaded the pride of their solemn
groves, to the time when the fate-directed arrow of
Tyrrel, with retributive justice, smote his heedless
and cruel-hearted prince : or to days still more
recent, when the horn of the jovial outlaw, Robin
Hood, resounded in the greenwood shade, and the
adventures and exploits of that peerless wight,
mingled with tales of monks, fair dames, chivalrous
knights, and distressed damsels, were rife, and of

THE OAK. 41

daily report in men's ears. Our early food was
acorns ; and our very poetic existence is strangely
blended with our oaks. Thor and Odin may dwell
in their vast and dreary caverns of the North. A
more beautiful and gentle race are the legendary
tenants of our groves ; or Jonson and Shakspeare
have belied their muse ; and Chaucer has poured
forth his descriptive melodies in vain. Even the
grave and classic Milton, when he tells

" Of forests and enchantments drear,"

departing from the time-hallowed superstitions of
the Greek and Roman page, acknowledges

" Each gentle habitant of grove and spring,"

and indulges his fancy on the subject of these
popular and romantic traditions, with an elegance
and grace peculiarly his own :

" fairy elves,

Whose midnight revels, by a forest side

Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while over head the moon

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course ; they on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear :

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."

PARADISE LOST, B. 1.

But we must not be tempted, by fairy visions and
poetic numbers, to stray too far from the more
sober matter of our page ; we will therefore return
to our original consideration of such trees as may
be classed under the head of historical. These

42 SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

indeed would form a volume in themselves; a
Sylvan Chronicle of times past, did we undertake
to mention all such as are rendered illustrious by
the names of the great and good who have sheltered
or meditated under their branches ; but our limits
restrain us from more than a mere glance at features
so interesting.

THE SHELTON OAK,

known familiarly in its neighbourhood by the appel-
lation of "Owen Glendower's Observatory," stands
on the road-side, where the Pool road diverges from
that which leads to Oswestry, about a mile and
a half from Shrewsbury. The spires of that city
form a pleasing object in the distance, whilst above
them, the famous mountain called the Wrekin
lifts its head, and inspires a thousand social re-
collections, as the well-known toast, that includes
all friends around its ample base, is brought to
mind by the sight of its lofty summit. The appear-
ance of the Shelton Oak, hollow throughout its
trunk, and with a cavity towards the bottom ca-
pable of containing at least half a score persons,
sufficiently denotes its antiquity. Tradition informs
us, that just before the famous battle of Shrews-
bury, June 21, 1403, headed on one side by Henry
the IVth in person, and on the other by the gallant
Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, Owen Glendower,

'-**&

~jL"kj

THE OAK. 43

the powerful Welch Chieftain, and the firm adhe-
rent of the English Insurgents, ascended this tree,
and from its lofty branches, then most probably in
the full pride of their vigour, reconnoitred the state
of the field : when finding that the King was in
great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland
had not joined his son Henry, he descended from his
leafy observatory, with the prudent resolution of
declining the combat, and retreated with his fol-
lowers to Oswestry. This caution seems scarcely in
character with the fierce and heedless courage of

" The irregular and wild Glendower,"
whose martial daring is well pourtrayed by our
great dramatic poet, in Hotspur's account of his
combat with " the noble Mortimer;" of whom he
says :

" To prove that true,

Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,

Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,

When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,

In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,

Upon agreement, of swift's Severn's flood ;

Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,

And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,

Blood-stained with the valiant combatants."

KING HENRY IV, 1st Part, Act 1. sc. 3.

44 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

The great age of the Shelton Oak, thus pointed out
by the tradition which connects it with the name of
Glendower, is likewise attested by legal documents
belonging to Richard Hill Waring, Esq., whose
ancestors possessed lands in Shelton, and the neigh-
bourhood, in the reign of Henry III. Among
this gentleman's title-deeds is a paper, subscribed,
" per me Adam Waring," and entitled, " How the
grette Oake at Shelton standeth on my grounde."
Wherein is the following mention made of this Oak
in 1543.

" Farther he saythe, that by cause the grounde
whereby the said gret oke standeth is moche more
nearer waye and handsomr onto the moost of the
said filds of Shelton, m'ckett mylle, and moost of yr
covenient places to resort to, and for that oon lande
of grounde belongyng to my said house stode right
and next to the folde southe east ende of my saide
house — which said lande of grounde did lye and
dothe streight upon the said gret oke," &c.

The circumference of this tree at one foot and a
half from the ground is thirty-seven feet, and at five
feet from the ground it is twenty-six feet.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S OAK,

with all its peculiar features and interesting tradition,
is so admirably described by the writer with whose

®w£Sieiii^iiSl^6^2SrS?5*?«

^^si^^A^ai^ifcrf^m ga^gMf'fl»?Mt'i3».^.»**" ^,™cW *>*-

THE OAK. 45

lines we have concluded the account of the Cow-
thorpe Oak, that little apology will be necessary
for giving his own words ; particularly as the man-
sion, in his graphic delineation of it, appears in such
perfect keeping with the tree, that it would be
equally repugnant to taste and good feeling to sepa-
rate them :

" You surprised me in saying, that you never
heard of the tree called Queen Elizabeth's Oak, at
Huntingfield, in Suffolk, till I mentioned it. As
the distance from Aspal is not more than a morn-
ing's airing, I wish you and your pupil would ride
over to take a view of it. You may, at the same
time, I believe, have an opportunity of seeing a very
fine drawing of this grand object, which was made
for Sir Gerard Vanneck, by Mr. Hearne. As I
measured it with that ingenious artist in a rough
way, to settle, in some degree, the proportions of its
bulk, it was found to be nearly eleven yards in cir-
cumference, at the height of seven feet from the
ground ; and, if we may conjecture from the con-
dition of other trees of the same sort, in different
parts of the kingdom, whose ages are supposed to
be pretty well ascertained, from some historical cir-
cumstances, I am persuaded this cannot be less
than five or six hundred years old.

" The time of growth in trees is generally said to
be proportioned to the duration of their timber after-
ward ; and I have now by me a piece of oak, taken

4« SYLVA BRITANNICA.

from that side of the ruins of Framlingham Castle,
which undoubtedly was part of the original building
in the time of Alfred the Great, if not much earlier ;
which, notwithstanding it had been exposed to the
sun and rains for a century at least before I cut
it out, yet it still smells woody, and appears to be
as sound as when the tree was first felled.

" The Queen's Oak at Huntingfield was situated
in a park of the Lord Hunsdon, about two bow-shots
from the old mansion-house, where Queen Elizabeth
is said to have been entertained by this nobleman,
and to have enjoyed the pleasures of the chase in a
kind of rural majesty. The approach to it was by a
bridge, over an arm of the river Blythe, and, if
I remember right, through three square courts. A
gallery was continued the whole length of the
building, which, opening upon a balcony over the
porch, gave an air of grandeur, with some variety to
the front. The great hall was built round six straight
massy oaks, which originally supported the roof as
they grew : upon these the foresters and yeomen of
the guard used to hang their nets, cross-bows,
hunting-poles, great saddles, calivers, bills, &c.
The root of them had been long decayed when I
visited this romantic dwelling ; and the shafts sawn
off at bottom were supported either by irregular
logs of wood driven under them, or by masonry.
Part of the long gallery, where the Queen and her
fair attendants used to divert themselves, was con-

THE OAK. 47

verted into an immense cheese chamber ; and upon
my first looking into it, in the dusk of a summer's
evening, when a number of these huge circular
things were scattered upon the floor, it struck me
that the maids of honour had just slipped off their
fardingales, to prepare for a general romping.

" Elizabeth is reported to have been much pleased
with the retirement of this park, which was filled
with tall and massy timbers, and to have been
particularly amused and entertained with the so-
lemnity of its walks and bowers. But this oak, from
which the tradition is that she shot a buck with her
own hand, was her favourite tree. It is still in
some degree of vigour, though most of its boughs
are broken off, and those which remain are ap-
proaching to a total decay, as well as its vast trunk :
the principal arm, now bald with dry antiquity, shoots
up to a great height above the leafage, and, being
hollow and truncated at top, with several cracks
resembling loop-holes, through which the light
shines into its cavity, it gives us an idea of the
winding staircase in a lofty Gothic turret, which,
detached from the other ruins of some venerable
pile, hangs tottering to its fall, and affects the
mind of a beholder after the same manner, by its
greatness and sublimity.

" No traces of the old hall, as it was called, are
now remaining; having fallen into an irreparable
state of decay. It was taken down a few years.

48 SYLVA BRTTANNICA.

since, by the late Sir Joshua Vanneck, baronet. I
have so much of the antiquary in me, as to wish
that some memorial of its simple grandeur could
have been preserved. You will be delighted with
Sir Joshua's noble plantation of oaks, beeches, and
chestnuts, &c., with which he has ornamented the
whole country, and which, in half a century, as the
soil is favourable to them, will be an inexhaustible
treasure to the public, as well as to his family." —
Davy's Letters, vol. i. p. 240.

More than half a century has elapsed since this
account was written, but the Gothic turret with its
irregular loop-holes is still remaining, although
somewhat lower in altitude ; and Queen Elizabeth's
Oak will probably witness the revolutions of more
than another century, before its leafy honours are
mingled with the dust. It measures thirty-four
feet in girt, at five feet from the ground. Mr. Davy
imagines it to have been five or six hundred years
old at the time he saw it ; and its present appear-
ance is sufficiently venerable to bear out the con-
jecture.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S OAK.

The beautiful estate of Penshurst, on which this
tree stands, may be deemed classic ground in every
part, as the ancient property of the Sidneys, one of
the most illustrious families of which England can

THE OAK. 49

boast. The tree itself has a more particular claim
on our veneration, having been planted at the birth of
Sir Philip Sidney ; a name dear alike to valour and
the muses, consecrated by every virtue that could
adorn private life, and graced with talents that ren-
dered their possessor the admiration of Europe, even
in his bloom of youth. Every memorial of a birth
so auspicious, every remembrance of a career so
bright, though, alas !

" Brief as the lightning in the collied night,"

is of value to the poet. Hence, this tree has been
celebrated by many of our best writers. Ben
Jonson speaks of it as,

" That taller tree which of a nut was set
At his great birth where all the Muses met."

And Waller, the gallant and elegant Waller, who
never lost sight of an allusion which might add, in
the eyes of his mistress, to the vivacity of his attach-
ment, thus immortalizes his numbers, by connecting
them with a name which, whilst England exists as
a nation, will always be proudly mentioned in her
annals.

" Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble SIDNEY'S birth; when such benign,
Such more than mortal-making stars did shine,
That there they cannot but for ever prove
The monument and pledge of humble love :
His humble love whose hope shall ne'er rise higher
Than for a pardon that he dares admire."

D

50 SLYVA BRITANNICA.

Sweet sounds often awaken echoes not less sweet :
so have these lines of Waller, rushing over a poetic
mind, filled it with images of the Sidneys, the Dud-
leys, the Leicesters of former ages ; and brought
forth the following interesting picture of the feelings
which Penshurst, so long the noble residence of
busy and exalted spirits, is calculated to awaken
in its present state of comparative desolation and
abandonment.

" Ye Towers sublime, deserted now and drear,

Ye woods, deep sighing to the hollow blast,
The musing wanderer loves to linger near,

While History points to all your glories past ;
And, startling from their haunts the timid deer,

To trace the walks obscured by matted fern,
Which Waller's soothing lyre were wont to hear,

But where now clamours the discordant heron !
The spoiling hand of Time may overturn

These lofty battlements, and quite deface
The fading canvass, whence we love to learn

Sidney's keen look, and Sacharissa's grace :
But fame and beauty still defy decay,
Saved by the historic page— the poet's tender lay !"

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

OAKS IN YARDLEY CHASE.

These fine trees, known by the characteristic ap-
pellation of Gog and Magog, stand in Yardley Forest,
and are the propertyofthe Marquess of Northampton.

X^

THE OAK. 51

The largest of them, Gog, measures thirty-eight feet
at the roots, twenty-eight feet at three feet from the
ground ; is fifty-eight feet in height, and contains six-
teen hundred and sixty-eight feet seven inches of
solid timber. Magog is more imposing in dimensions,
measuring fifty-four feet four inches at the ground,
and thirty-one feet three inches at three feet higher
up ; but in height it is inferior, being only forty-nine
feet : its solid contents are nine hundred and twelve
feet ten inches. The estate of the Marquess of
Northampton abounds with many other magnificent
specimens of forest trees ; and it will not lessen
their interest to recollect, that among them the poet
Cowper often pursued the train of moral thought,
and wove the harmonious numbers, with which he
afterwards delighted and improved the world ; and
with what accuracy this observer of nature distin-
guished the different species of the productions of
the Forest, an accuracy not excelled by that of
Spenser himself, may be seen in his description of
the sylvan haunts he so much loved.

" Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,
Diversified with trees of every growth,
Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,
Within the twilight of their distant shades ;
There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk, and shorten'd to its topmost boughs.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar ; paler some,

52 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

AncJ of a wannish gray ; the willow such,

And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,

And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm ;

Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,

Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.

Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun —

The maple, and the beech, of oily nuts

Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve

Diffusing odours : nor unnoted pass

The sycamore, capricious in attire,

Now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet

Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright.'

THE OAKS AT FREDVILLE.

Nearly in front of the family mansion of John
Plumtre, Esq., in his park at Fredville, in the
parish of Nonnington, Kent, is a group of oaks
known by the names of Majesty, Stately, and
Beauty. Seldom are three trees so different from
each other in individual character, and so interest-
ing altogether, to be found in such near proximity.
Majesty, which, as its name denotes, is the largest,
is somewhat more than twenty-eight feet in circum-
ference, at eight feet from the ground, and contains
above fourteen hundred feet of timber. Stately,
the next in point of size, is a noble specimen of the
tall oak ; the stem going up straight and clean to
the height of seventy feet. The girth, at four feet
from the ground, is eighteen feet ; and it contains

•

'^ggBfift .->. -• &

- 5 >t •>fc"«WSfife..!y--.-.lte*'- :-!'-•* •

THE OAK. 53

about five hundred feet of timber. Beauty, at an
equal height, is sixteen feet in circumference, and
its solid contents are nearly the same. Altogether
these three graces of the forest form a group imme-
diately within sight of the house, which, for magni-
ficence and beauty, is not perhaps to be equalled by
any other of the same nature ; awakening in the mind
of the spectator the most agreeable associations of the
freedom and grandeur of woodland scenery, with
the security and refinements of cultivated life. " Is
it not a pity," says Sir Edward Harley, speaking of
some ancient trees of his own, " that such goodly
creatures should be devoted to Vulcan ?" No such
fate, however, attends this graceful trio ; and the
pleasure with which the spectator views their diffe-
rent characteristics, is heightened - by a sense that
they are likely to remain cherished and protected
equally in their decay as in their prime. Protected
from violence, they will probably stand many cen-
turies ; and it may be hoped that they will as long
continue to delight the descendants of the family by
whom they are at present so highly valued, and so
carefully preserved.

54 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE OAKS AT BURLEY.

This fine group of Oaks, twelve in number, of
which a view is given in the title-page, stands on
the lawn at Burley Lodge, New Forest, the property
of Lord Bolton. The largest of them is seven yards
and a half in circumference. They are known by
the name of the Twelve Apostles, and perhaps this
designation unconsciously adds to the feelings of
reverence and regard which their venerable appear-
ance, and their proximity to each other, as if drawn
together by bonds of friendship, are calculated to
inspire. There is a solemnity in a group of ancient
trees that powerfully disposes the mind to serious
thought, and carries it back to former ages :

" It seems idolatry with some excuse
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act
Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscribed, as to a refuge fled."

COWPER.

Chardin, who published his travels in Turkey in
the 17th century, remarks, that the religious Maho-
metans chose to pray under old trees, rather than in
the neighbouring mosques : " They devoutly reve-

THE OAK. 55

rence," says he, " those trees which seem to have
existed during many ages ; piously believing that
the holy men of former times had prayed and medi-
tated under their umbrageous shade." With such
feelings to enhance their favourite gratification of
reclining under the widely-spreading branches of
some fine tree, no wonder they regard the destruc-
tion of one as an act of sacrilege.

The beautiful forest scenery with which the Oaks
at Burley are surrounded on every side, predispose
the lover of sylvan objects to be pleased with them,
at the same time that they awaken in his breast an
ardent desire to see every tree that bows its head to
the earth, either by natural decay, by the fury of
the elements, or the more furious and unpitying axe,
replaced by a whole group pf successors. " The
value of timber," says Gilpin, " is its misfortune :
every graceless hand can fell a tree." But the hand
that fells an oak can likewise plant an acorn ; and
this restitution to mother earth is surely due from
those who despoil her of her noblest and most
ancient treasures, to satisfy some low necessity of
the passing moment. Sir Robert Walpole planted
with his own hands many of the magnificent trees
which are now the pride of Houghton ; and of all the
actions of his busy life, this is the one which seems
to have given him most gratification in the perform-
ance, and most pleasure in the retrospect. " Men,"
says Evelyn, " seldom plant trees till they begin to

5G SYLVA BRITANNICA.

be wise ; that is, till they grow old, and find by
experience the prudence and necessity of it." Ci-
cero mentions planting as one of the most delightful
occupations of old age, and it is indeed of all pur-
suits connected with the interests of mankind, one
of the most nobly disinterested, yet the most truly
wise. He who puts a sapling into the ground, is
morally certain that he shall not live to enjoy the
shade of its matured branches ; but he enjoys it
every day, and a thousand fold, in the thought, that
the land, which to his predecessors had been only a
barren waste, will present to his successors a scene
of waving beauty, sheltering the surrounding country,
and inviting many a devious step to explore its
tangled haunts. This fine feeling of entering by
proxy, as it were, into the interests and enjoyments
of posterity, is most pleasingly expressed in the
following lines, on an obelisk at the termination of a
noble avenue in the park of Lord Carlisle, at Castle
Howard in Yorkshire, and written by one of his
ancestors :

" If to perfection these plantations rise,
If they agreeably my heirs surprise,
This faithful pillar will their age declare,
As long as Time these characters shall spare.
Here then with kind remembrance read his name
Who for posterity performed the same.

Charles, the 3d Earl of Carlisle,

of the family of the Howards.

Erected 1731."

THE OAK.

57

It is impossible to read these lines, quaint and
simple as they are, without being conscious of senti-
ments of respect towards the benevolent spirit by
which they are dictated ; and under that impression
the very trees themselves seem to rise in prouder
majesty, to fan the air more gracefully, and to offer
a more refreshing shade, in grateful tribute to the
memory of him by whose hand they were planted.

58 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE ELM.

Foecundae frondibus Ulmi.

VIRGIL.

IN the scale of precedence among Forest trees the
Elm, which is indigenous to England, has a right,
both with respect to beauty and utility, to claim a
place next to the Oak in dignity and rank. One
very important property, as regards the usefulness
of its timber, is that of being able to bear the alter-
nations of dryness and moisture, without rotting ;
which renders it more especially fit for all purposes
connected with water, or exposure to the atmo-
sphere. The hardness of its grain is another quality
that adds to its value ; nor ought its foliage to be
forgotten; forming, as it may do, a substitute for
hay and fodder, in times of scarcity : the Roman
husbandman, indeed, frequently fed his cattle on
the leaves of the Elm ; hence Virgil reckons the
redundancy of them among its excellencies.

THE ELM. 59

No tree bears transplanting better than the Elm.
It will suffer removal even at twenty years of age ;
which renders it very desirable for those who may
wish to impart to new-built mansions the respect-
ability which leafy shades, of apparently long
standing, always confer on a habitation. The Elm
is, indeed, peculiarly fitted for " the length of
colonnade," with which our forefathers loved to
make graceful and gradual entry to their hospitable
halls. Loving society, yet averse from a crowd,
delighting in fresh air, and in room to expand its
roots, and affording its aid to all the weaker plants
in its vicinity that may seek its support, it presents
a pleasing emblem of the class of country gentlemen,
whose abodes it is oftenest found to adorn and pro-
tect. Gilpin justly observes, that no tree is better
adapted to receive grand masses of light than the
Elm. In this respect it is superior, not only to the
Oak and the Ash, but perhaps to every other tree ;
nor is its foliage, shadowing as it is, of the heavy
kind : its leaves are small, and this gives it a natural
lightness; it commonly hangs loosely and is in
general very picturesque. It is likewise the first
tree that salutes the early spring with its light and
cheerful green, a tint which contrasts agreeably with
the Oak, whose early leaf has generally more of the
olive cast. They may be seen in fine harmony
together in the beginning of May.

GO SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

THE CHIPSTEAD ELM

stands on a rising ground, in a retired part of the
pleasure-garden of George Polhill, Esquire, of Chip-
stead Place, in Kent. It is sixty feet high ; twenty
feet in circumference at the base ; and fifteen feet
eight inches, at three feet and a half from the
ground. It contains two hundred and sixty-eight
feet of timber ; but this bulk is comparatively small
to what it would have been, had it not sustained the
loss of some large branches towards the centre. Its
venerable trunk is richly mantled with ivy, and gives
signs of considerable age ; but the luxuriance of its
foliage attest its vigour, and it is as fine a specimen
of its species in full beauty as can be found.

It may not be amiss to remark in this place, that
the Elm is peculiarly liable to injury from the
attacks of insects of the beetle kind ; one of
which in particular, the hyksinus destructor, of
Fabricius, or scolytus destructor, of Latreille, is pe-
culiar to it, and is its most formidable enemy.
Much valuable information is given on this subject
by Mr. Maclery, in his " Report to the Treasury,
on the State of the Elms in St. James's Park,
in 1824," which may be found in the Edinburgh
Philosophical Journal for July, in that year. After
several excellent remarks on the ravages committed
by certain insects on forest trees, in which he points

"., f '/1,/Hlfnu/ I '-'/,„

THE ELM. 61

out with great sagacity the causes of those diseases
among them that appear to be infectious, and often
blight at once the plantations and the hopes of the
planter : " Of the evil which is mentioned above in
general terms," he proceeds to observe, " St. James's
and Hyde Parks afford us at present too many
examples. The elm-trees in both, and particularly
in St. James's Park, are rapidly disappearing ; and
unless decisive measures be soon taken to resist the
progress of the contagion, we must not only expect
every tree of this species to be destroyed in the
Parks, but may have to regret the dissemination of
the evil throughout the vicinity of London. In the
year 1780, an insect of the same natural family as
the hyleshiies destructor, made its appearance in the
pine-forests of the Hartz, and was neglected. In
the year 1783, whole forests had disappeared, and, for
want of fuel, an end was nearly put to the mining
operations of that extensive range of country. At
the present moment, also, the French Government
is in alarm at the devastation committed in their
arsenals, by an insect well known to naturalists,
under the name of lymexylon navale. About ten
years ago, the principal naval engineer at Toulon,
M. de Cerisier, who happened to be conversant with
entomology, discovered this insect in the dock-yards,
and recommended certain precautions to be taken
for the preservation of the timber there lodged.
The French Government objected to the expense

62 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

requisite for obviating an evil, of which, as yet, they
had no experience ; and now, when perhaps it is too
late, the minister of marine has determined to follow
M. de Cerisier's advice. It is from such instances
that we perceive the truth of an observation made
by a French academician, while alluding to the de-
vastation which such insects may occasion : " L'his-
toire de ces animaux me'rite d'etre connue, ;\ raison de
son extreme importance, de tous les grands pro-
prie"taires, et surtout par les inspecteurs g£n£raux de
nos forets ; elles ont aussi leurs insectes destructeurs ;
et ils verroient combien de causes, qui dans le prin-
cipe ne fixent au moment 1'attention, peuvent par
negligence devenir funestes a 1'Etat."

THE CRAWLEY ELM

stands in the village of Crawley, on the high road
from London to Brighton. It is a well-known object
to all who are in the habit of travelling that way,
and arrests the eye of the stranger at once by
its tall and straight stem, which ascends to the
height of seventy feet, and by the fantastic rugged-
ness of its wildly-spreading roots. Its trunk is per-
forated to the very top, measuring sixty-one feet in
circumference at the ground, and thirty-five feet
round the inside, at two feet from the base.

In former ages it would have constituted a fit

.>.

i HE ELM. 63

retreat for a Druid, whence he might have dispensed
his sacred oracles ; or in later times for a hermit,
who might have sat within the hollow stem with

" His few books, 01 his beads, or maple dish,"

and gazed on the stars as they passed over his head,
without his reflections being disturbed by the inter-
vention of a single outward object : but to the bene-
volent mind it gives rise to more pleasing ideas in its
present state : lifting its tranquil head over humble
roofs, which it has sheltered from their foundation,
and affording, in the projections and points around
its base, an inexhaustible source of pleasure to the
train of village children who cluster like bees around
it ; trying their infant strength and courage in climb-
ing its mimic precipices, whilst their parents recall,
in their pastimes, the feelings of their own child-
hood ; when, like them, they disported under the
same boughs. It is such associations as these that
render a well-known and favourite tree an object
that no art can imitate ; no substitute replace. It
seems to live with us, and for us ; and he who can
wantonly destroy the source of so much innocent,
and indeed exalted gratification, appears to commit
an injury against a friend, which we find more diffi-
culty in forgiving than one against ourselves. It
would be impossible to see such a noble tree as the
Crawley Elm felled without regret ; — its aged head
brought prostrate to the ground, its still green
branches despoiled in the dust, its spreading roots

64 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

left bare and desolate. The old would miss it, as
the object that brought back to them the recol-
lections of their youth ; the young would lament for
it, as having hoped to talk of it when they should be
old themselves. The traveller who had heard of its
beauty would look for it in vain, to beguile him on
the road ; and the weary wanderer, returning to his
long-left home, would scarcely know his paternal
roof, when robbed of the shade of the branches
which he had seen wave even before his cradle. A
stately forest is one of the grandest sights in creation ;
an insulated tree one of the most beautiful. In the
deep recesses of a wood an aged tree commands a
veneration, similar to that which we are early taught
to feel towards the possessor of royalty, or the
minister of religion ; but in a hamlet, or on a green,
we regard it with the gentler reverence due to a
parent, or the affection inspired by the presence of a
long-tried friend.

THE ELMS AT MONGEWELL.

These noble trees are close to the residence of the
late Bishop of Durham, at Mongewell in Oxford-
shire, celebrated by Leland for its " faire woodes,"
and may serve to recall to the mind of the beholder
Cowper's eulogium on shades so natural and de-
lightful.

THE ELM. 65

" Our fathers knew the value of a screen
From sultry suns, and in their shaded walks
And long protracted bowers enjoyed, at noon,
The gloom and coolness of declining day."

The principal tree among them is seventy-nine
feet in height, fourteen in circumference, at three
feet from the ground, sixty- five in extent of boughs,
and contains two hundred and fifty-six feet of solid
timber. About the centre of the group stands an
urn with the following inscription :

To the Memory

Of my

Two Highly Valued Friends,
Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq.

And
The Rev. C. M. Cracherode, M.A.

In this once favour'd walk, beneath these Elms,

Whose thicken'd foliage, to the solar ray

Impervious, sheds a venerable gloom,

Oft in instructive converse we beguiled

The fervid time which each returning year

To friendship's call devoted. Such things were ;

But arc, alas ! no more.

S. DUNELM.

Pleasing as it always is to see worth and genius
paying tribute to kindred associations, it is particu-
larly so in the present instance, from the illustrious
Prelate who, in these lines, hands down the names
of his friends to posterity, and whom it was de-
lightful to contemplate wandering, in his ninetieth

E

66 SYLVA BRITANN1CA.

year, amidst shades with which he was almost
coeval, and which in freshness and tranquillity
afforded the most soothing emblems of his own
green and venerable old age.

THE TUTBURY WYCH-ELM.

THE WYCH-ELM, or Wych Hazel, as it is some-
times called, from the resemblance that its leaves
and young shoots bear to those of the Hazel, is a
species of the Elm, which is valuable rather for the
quantity of its timber than the quality of it. Since
the long bow, for the making of which it was much
esteemed in former times, has fallen entirely into
disuse, its value is proportionably lessened. It is,
however, a noble spreading tree, and grows oc-
casionally to a prodigious size, as may be seen
by Evelyn's account of one in Sir Walter Bagot's
park, in the county of Stafford, "which," says he,
" after two men had been five days felling, lay
forty yards in length, and was, at the stool, seven-
teen feet diameter. It broke in the fall four-
teen load of wood, forty-eight in the top ; yielded
eight pair of panes, eight thousand six hundred and
sixty feet of boards and planks ; the whole es-
teemed ninety-seven tons. This was certainly a
goodly stick." The Tutbury Wych-Elm is thus
mentioned by Shaw, in his history of Staf-

THE ELM. 67

fordshire : — "In the road leading from Tutbury
to Rolleston is a very large and beautiful Wych-
Elm, the bole of which is remarkably straight,
thick, and lofty ; having eight noble branches, the
size of common trees, which spread their umbra-
geous foliage luxuriantly around, forming a magni-
ficent and graceful feature, both in the near and
distant prospect. This, if not at present, will, in
a few years, be as great a curiosity in the vegeta-
ble world, as the famous Wych-Elm at Field, de-
scribed by Doctor Plott."

The trunk of this tree is twelve feet long, and
sixteen feet nine inches in circumference, at the
height of five feet from the ground ; seven feet higher,
the trunk divides into the " eight noble branches;"
they are nearly fifty feet high, and extend between
forty and fifty feet from the centre of the tree,
which contains six hundred and eighty-nine cubic
feet of timber. The interest that this beautiful
object imparts to the spot on which it stands, is
increased by the pleasing prospect of Tutbury Castle,
which lifts its venerable remains in the distance, and
awakens a train of interesting reflections, on the vir-
tues of one of its earliest owners, " Time-honored
Lancaster," and the vicissitudes to which it has been
exposed, during the ages that have now left it only
the vestige of what it was, in the days of feudal
greatness.

SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE WYCH ELM AT BAGOT'S MILL

is more distinguished by its beauty than its size.
It is in such situations as the present, abounding
in rural objects, each connected with another in har-
mony and fitness, that an insulated tree inspires re-
flections peculiarly pleasing. It seems the common
property of all who raise their humble tenements
within sight of its branches, and is one of the de-
lightful ornaments of nature that the poorest cottager
may enjoy and be proud of, as he sees the stranger
stop to gaze at it. Perhaps there is no country in the
world where an admiration of fine trees is so genuinely
felt, or so generally diffused, through all ranks, as in
England. " I am fond of listening," says a Trans-
atlantic writer, long esteemed, and now domesticated
among us, " to the conversation of English gentle-
men on rural concerns ; and of noticing with what
taste and discrimination, and with what strong un-
affected interest, they will discuss topics which, in
other countries, are abandoned to mere woodmen or
rustic cultivators. I have heard a noble earl descant
on park and forest scenery with the science and
feeling of a painter : he dwelt on the shape and
beauty of particular trees on his estate, with as much
pride and technical precision as though he had been

THE ELM. (J9

discussing the merits of statues in his collection. I
found that he had even gone considerable distances
to examine trees which were celebrated among rural
amateurs ; for it seems that trees, like horses, have
their established points of excellence ; and that
there are some in England which enjoy very exten-
sive celebrity among tree-fanciers, from being per-
fect in their kind. There is something nobly simple
and pure in such a taste : it argues, I think, a sweet
and generous nature to have this strong relish for the
beauties of vegetation, and this friendship for the
hardy and glorious sons of the forest. There is a
grandeur of thought connected with this part of
rural economy. It is, if I may be allowed the
figure, the heroic line of husbandry. It is worthy
of liberal, and free-born and aspiring men. He who
plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and plants
for posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this.
He cannot expect to sit in its shade, nor enjoy its
shelter ; but he exults in the idea, that the acorn
which he has buried in the earth shall grow up into
a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing and in-
creasing, and benefiting mankind, long after he
shall have ceased to tread his paternal fields. In-
deed it is the nature of such occupations to lift the
thoughts above mere worldliness. As the leaves of
trees are said to absorb all noxious qualities of the
air, and to breathe forth a purer atmosphere, so it
seems to me as if they drew from us all sordid and

70 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

angry passions, and breathed forth peace and phi-
lanthropy. There is a serene and settled majesty in
woodland scenery that enters into the soul, and di-
lates and elevates it, and fills it with noble incli-
nations. The ancient and hereditary groves, too,
that embower this island, are most of them full of
story. They are haunted by the recollections of
great spirits of past ages, who have sought for re-
laxation among them from the tumult of arms, or the
toils of states, or have wooed the muse beneath their
shade. Who can walk, with soul unmoved, among
the stately groves of Penshurst, where the gallant,
the amiable, the elegant, Sir Philip Sidney passed
his boyhood ? or can look without fondness upon
the tree that is said to have been planted on his
birth-day ? or can ramble among the classic bowers
of Hagley ? or can pause among the solitudes of
Windsor Forest, and look at the oaks around, huge,
gray, and time-worn, like the old castle-towers, and
not feel as if he were surrounded by so many monu-
ments of long-enduring glory? It is when viewed
in this light, that planted groves, and stately ave-
nues, and cultivated parks, have an advantage over
the more luxuriant beauties of unassisted nature.
It is that they teem with moral associations, and
keep up the ever-interesting story of human exist-
ence. It is incumbent, then, on the high and gene-
rous spirits of an ancient nation, to cherish these
sacred groves that surround their ancestral mansions,

THE ELM. 71

and to perpetuate them to their descendants. Re-
publican as I am by birth, and brought up as I have
been in republican principles and habits, I can feel
nothing of the servile reverence for titled rank,
merely because it is titled ; but I trust that I am
neither churl nor bigot in my creed. I can both see
and feel how hereditary distinction, when it falls to
the lot of a generous mind, may elevate that mind
into true nobility. It is one of the effects of here-
ditary rank, when it falls thus happily, that it multi-
plies the duties, and, as it were, extends the exist-
ence of the possessor. He does not feel himself a
mere individual link in creation, responsible only for
his own brief term of being. He carries back his
existence in proud recollection, and he extends it
forward in honorable anticipation. He lives with
his ancestry and he lives with his posterity. To
both does he consider himself involved in deep
responsibilities. As he has received much from
those that have gone before, so he feels bound to
transmit much to those who are to come after him.
His domestic undertakings seem to imply a longer
existence than those of ordinary men ; none are so
apt to build and plant for future centuries, as noble-
spirited men who have received their heritages from
foregone ages." — WASHINGTON IRVING.

72 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE BEECH.

Sylva domus, cubilia frondes.

The wood a house, the leaves a bed.

JUVENAL.

THERE is no tree with which more classical and
pleasing associations are connected, than the Beech ;
the very mention of it recalls Virgil's

" Tityre, tu, patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi,
Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena :"

and a thousand images of rural life, of rustic lovers
carving their mistresses' names on its silver bark, of
tuneful shepherds disputing for bowls of its wood,
as curiously carved, and almost as much valued as if
of precious metal, all spring into the imagination.

The Beech, however, has more solid claims on
admiration than those which merely affect the fancy.
It is a profitable as well as a beautiful tree ; for
though its wood, on account of being exceedingly
subject to the ravages of the worm, is not so fit as the

THE BEECH. 73

Elm or Walnut for purposes where durability is re-
quisite, it is yet much used for household furniture,
and instruments of husbandry, and, when kept under
water, is little inferior in ship-building to the Elm
itself. The Beech will grow in the most stony and
barren soils ; and as a shelter in exposed situations
it is particularly desirable, on account of retaining
its glittering leaves till the very end of autumn, and
indeed many of them throughout the winter ; their
delicate green gradually changing to modest brown,
then to glowing orange, and latest to the more ap-
propriate red. In the spring its foliage, feathering
almost to the ground, is exquisitely beautiful ; and
its fantastic roots, immortalised by Gray, in his cele-
brated Elegy, are frequently covered with wild
flowers. " About the end of September, when the
leaf begins to change, it forms a happy contrast
with the Oak whose foliage is yet verdant, and we
shall find the finest opposition of tint which the
forest can furnish, arise from the union of the oak
and the beech." Swine, deer, and the smaller qua-
drupeds, tenants of the hollow trees, such as the
squirrel, mouse, and dormouse, greedily fatten upon
its mast, which is likewise capable of being con-
verted into bread and oil for the human race ; its
leaves afford the most agreeable matrasses, conti-
nuing sweet and tender for seven or eight years
together, and are eulogised by Evelyn, from his own
experience, for their refreshing softness. It must,

74 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

however, be acknowledged, that its shades are more
favourable to the traveller and the shepherd, than
to vegetation ; and that it is of that encroaching
and dominant nature, that a wood which may have
been originally in equal proportions of Oak and
Beech, will in course of time become entirely
beechen.

THE GREAT BEECH IN WINDSOR
FOREST,

near Sawyer's Gate, in the neighbourhood of Sun-
ning Hill, presents remains of surpassing grandeur,
and evidently of great antiquity. " Its rugged
projections and twisted roots give it, on one side,
the appearance of some rude mass of broken archi-
tecture ; whilst on the other it is entirely hollow,
and surrounded by lofty and aged trees, spread-
ing their dark umbrageous arms, as if to hide
the access to it : insomuch that one coming sud-
denly upon the sequestered spot in remoter times,
might have imagined that he had ventured unawares
within the precincts of some marauder's cave ; or
intruded, perchance, on some holy anchorite's
retreat. Many, indeed, are the delightful scenes
of contemplation that this magnificent and truly
regal forest affords. Many are the aged oaks and
spreading beeches, that seem to speak of the days

THE BEECH. 75

of Arthur with his knights ; of William the Norman ;
of the third Edward ; of his peerless son, the Black
Prince ; of his illustrious captive, John of France ;
and of characters blazoned in the page of later his-
tories, that have rested beneath their shade. Nor
can these noble forest scenes fail to be still more
pleasing, to those who recreate themselves among
them in the present day, from the consideration that
they give added beauty and variety to an abode fitly
chosen for the favoured residence of royalty ; and to
which, the elegant description by Camden will be
found to apply as aptly at the present moment, as
when it was first written :

" From a high hill," says he, " which riseth with
a gentle ascent, it overlooketh a vale lying out far
and wide, garnished with corn fields, flourishing
with meadows, decked with groves on either side,
and watered with the most mild and calm river
Thames. Behind it arise hills every where, neither
rough nor over-high ; attired with woods ; and even
dedicated, as it were, by nature, to hunting and
game." — DELICI^E SYLVARUM, p. 2.

To this beautiful assemblage of natural images, set
forth in the truth of prose, not even the poetical
numbers of Pope can give additional attraction.

" Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day :
There interspersed in lawns and opening glades
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.

76 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

Here in full light the russet plains extend,

There, wrapt in clouds, the blueish hills ascend.

Let India boast her plants, nor envy we

The weeping amber of the balmy tree ;

While by our Oaks the precious loads are borne,

And realms commanded which those trees adorn."

WINDSOR FOREST.

THE BURNHAM BEECHES.

" This beautiful track of woodland is four miles
from Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire, and is cele-
brated as the scene of Gray's poetic musings, who
gives the following description of it to Horace Wal-
pole : — " I have at the distance of half a mile," says
he, " through a green lane, a forest (the vulgar call
it a common) all my own, at least as good as so, for
I spy no human thing in it but myself. It is a little
chaos of mountains and precipices ; mountains, it is
true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor
are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover Cliff;
but just such hills as people who love their necks as
much as I do, may venture to climb, and crags that
give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more
dangerous ; both vale and hill are covered with
most venerable beeches, and other very reverend
vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are
always dreaming out their old stories to the winds.

THE BEECH. 77

" And as they bow their hoary tops relate,

In murm'ring sounds, the dark decrees of Fate ;

While visions, as poetic eyes avow,

Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough."

"At the foot of one of these squats me I, (// Penseroso)
and there grow to the trunk for a whole morning.
The timorous hare and sportive squirrel gambol
around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had an
Eve ; but I think he did not use to read Virgil, as I
commonly do there." It is easy to recognise in this
description the same feelings and observations after-
wards depicted in the portrait of " A youth to fortune
and to fame unknown," of whom the writer says in
his celebrated Elegy,

" There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that bubbles by."

Here indeed the beech, so celebrated by poets,
reigns in undivided sovereignty, scarcely admitting
an oak to share its domain, so that we may easily
imagine how it must have overrun the country before
the opposing influence of agriculture was known ;
indeed we are told by old historians, the county
was rendered impassable by the thickness of its
woods, and the shelter they afforded for marauders
and thieves, until several of them were cut down by
Leofstan, Abbot of St. Alban's. — DELICI/E SYL-
VAHUM, page 7.

78 SYLVA BRITANNIC A.

THE ASH.

Fraxinus in Sylvis pulcherrima.

VIRGIL.

THE Ash, from the lightness of its foliage, the
graceful sweep of its branches, and the silvery ap-
pearance of its stem, has been called the Venus of
the Forest ; nor is it less admirable for utility than
for beauty, as there is no timber, excepting that of
the Oak, that is more generally in use. It is ex-
tremely profitable to the planter, as it will grow
well in almost any soil, but its shade is accounted
unfavourable to vegetation, and as it casts its leaves
early, and displays them late, it is less desirable for
avenues and pleasure-grounds ; though when it is in
fine foliage, there is no tree more beautiful.

THE GREAT ASH AT WOBURN

stands in the Park of His Grace the Duke of Bed-
ford, about a quarter of a mile from the mansion,
and is an extraordinary specimen of the size which

THE ASH. 79

this tree will attain in favourable situations. It is
ninety feet high, from the ground to the top of its
branches ; and the stem alone is twenty-eight feet.
It is twenty-three feet six inches in circumference
on the ground, twenty at one foot, and fifteen feet
three inches, at three feet from the ground. The
circumference of its branches is one hundred and
thirteen feet in diameter ; and the measurable tim-
ber in the body of the tree, is three hundred and
forty-three feet; and in the arms and branches,
one of which is nine feet in circumference, five
hundred and twenty-nine ; making altogether eight
hundred and seventy-two feet of timber. It is
in mountain scenery that the ash appears to pe-
culiar advantage ; waving its slender branches over
some precipice which just affords it soil sufficient
for its footing, or springing between crevices of
rock, a happy emblem of the hardy spirit which
will not be subdued by fortune's scantiness. It is
likewise a lovely object by the side of some crystal
stream, in which it views its elegant pendent foliage,
bending, Narcissus-like, over its own charms. The
Ash was held in great veneration by the ancients :
insomuch that Hesiod, the oldest of poets, derives
his brazen men from it ; and the Edda assigns the
same origin to all the human race. Nor is there
any tree to which poetry or superstition has at-
tached more legendary incidents, or more miraculous
powers.

80 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE CHESNUT.

THE Chesnut is indigenous to England, and will
thrive in almost any soil and any situation. In
variety of usefulness its timber equals, and in some
respects excels that of the Oak. Its luxuriance of
foliage and feathered stems, render it conspicuous
among all other trees for beauty; and its fruit
might, by proper management, be made a valuable
article of food in this country, as it is in France
and Italy, where it is subjected to a variety of culi-
nary processes, that convert it into delicacies for the
tables of the luxurious, and into nutritious bread for

' «*

the humbler classes.

The Chesnut sometimes grows to a prodigious
size. Evelyn speaks of one in Gloucestershire,
which contained " within the bowels of it, a pretty
wainscoted room, enlightened with windows, and
furnished with seats," &c. ; but the largest known
in the world is upon Mount Etna, in Sicily. This

THE CHESNUT. 81

tree, which goes by the name of Castagno de Cento
Cavalli, is described by Brydone, who went to see
it through five or six miles of almost impassable
forests, growing out of the lava, as having the ap-
pearance of five large trees growing together ; but
upon a more accurate examination, strengthened by
the assurances of scientific persons, he became in-
clined to believe that they had been formerly united
in one solid stem, and on measuring the hollow space
within, he found it two hundred and four feet round :
Carrera's assertion, that there was wood enough in
that one tree to build a large palace, can therefore
scarcely be regarded as an exaggeration.

The chesnut flourishes abundantly amidst the
mountains of Calabria ; hence it is that we find it
always forming a prominent feature in the bold and
rugged landscapes of Salvater Rosa, who drew several
of his most striking scenes from the wild haunts and
natural fastnesses of that romantic country, wherein
he passed so many of his youthful days. The ches-
nut appears to have been more plentiful in former
times in this country than it is at present. Many
of the most ancient houses in London were built of
its wood, as is the roof of Westminster Hall, built
by William Rufus in the year 1099, still free from
any appearance of decay, and one of the finest pro-
ductions, in its kind, of human art, in point of size,
beauty, strength, and durability. Of late years,
however, the attention of planters has been turned -

F

82 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

more to the cultivation of the chesnut ; and as it is
highly ornamental whilst growing, is early capable
of being converted into excellent timber, and quarrels
with no soil assigned to it, it is on every account
deserving of encouragement.

THE TORTWORTH CHESNUT

is probably the oldest tree now standing in England.
It is brought forward in evidence by Dr. Ducarel, in
his contest with Daines Barrington, respecting the
Chesnut being a native of Britain, as a proof that
it is indigenous. In the reign of Stephen, who
ascended the throne in 1 135, it was deemed so re-
markable for its size, that, as appears upon record,
it was well known as a signal boundary to the
manor of Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, where it
stands, and is mentioned as such by Evelyn, in his
SYLVA, b. in. c. 3. At the time that it was thus
conspicuous for its magnitude and vigour, we may
reasonably suppose it to have been in its prime : if,
therefore, we pay any regard to the received opinion
which is applied to the Chesnut, equally with the
Oak, that it is three hundred years in coming to
perfection, this calculation takes us back to the
beginning of the reign of Egbert, in the year 800,
for the commencement of the existence of the Tort-
worth Chesnut. Since that epoch above a thou-

THE CHESNUT. 83

sand years have rolled over its yet green head.
How is it possible, bearing this reflexion in our
minds, to look upon its gigantic trunk, and widely-
spreading arms, without feelings of reverence ! How
many, not merely generations of men, but whole
nations, have been swept from the face of the earth,
whilst, winter after winter, it has defied the howling
blasts with its bare branches, and spring after spring
put forth its leaves again, a grateful shelter from the
summer suns ! Its tranquil existence, unlike that
of the human race, stained by no guilt, chequered
by no vicissitudes, is thus perpetually renewing
itself; and, if we judge from the luxuriance of its
foliage, and the vigour of the branches which en-
circle the parent stem in wild profusion, may be
prolonged for as many more centuries as it has
already stood. Nor is it solitary in its old age. Its
progeny rises around it, and its venerable roots are
nearly hidden by the lighter saplings and bushes
that have sought the protection of its boughs, making
it appear a grove in itself — a fit residence for some
sylvan deity, and realising Cowley's animated
apostrophe :

" Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!

Hail, ye plebeian underwood,

Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food

Pay with their grateful voice.

84 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

" Here Nature does a house for me erect, —

Nature, the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,

Yet the dead timber prize.

" Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,

And the more tuneful birds to both replying,
Nor be myself too mute."

It is only on approaching within the very limits
overshadowed by its spreading branches, that the
size of this majestic tree can be duly estimated ; but
when its full proportions are fairly viewed on all
sides, it strikes the beholder with feelings of wonder
and admiration, alike for its bulk and for the num-
ber of centuries which it has been in attaining it.

When we consider how beautiful and interesting
an object a magnificent tree is in itself, how proud
an ornament it forms to the spot whereon it flou-
rishes— an ornament not to be equalled by any
edifice reared by human hands ; how incontestable
a witness it bears to the ancient riches or honours
of those on whose estates it may for ages have been
cherished and preserved ; it might be imagined, that
such as are fortunate enough to possess any remark-
able treasures of this description in their parks or
forests, would at least be as studious to retain them,
as to amass other curiosities of nature or of art,

THE CHESNUT. 85

which may be of comparatively short duration : yet
the Tortworth Chesnut does not appear to have
been treated with the respect due to its age and
magnitude, or the care desirable for its continuance.
It is only within a few years that it has been re-
lieved from the pressure of three walls, in the angle
of which it stood, and which must have greatly
injured the spreading of its roots. The axe which
might have been commendably employed in clearing
the approach to it of brambles and briers, has, on
the contrary, been barbarously, though not recently,
applied to the tree itself; which has been wantonly
despoiled of several large limbs on the north-east
side, apparently many years ago; it is in conse-
quence much decayed on that side, whilst on the
others it is still sound. The Tortworth Chesnut, in
1766, measured fifty feet in circumference, at five
feet from the ground. Its present measurement, at
the same height, is fifty-two feet. The body is ten
feet in height, to the fork, where it divides into three
limbs, one of which, at the period already mentioned,
measured twenty-eight feet and a half in girth, at the
distance of five feet from the parent stem. The
solid contents, according to the customary method
of measuring timber, is one thousand nine hundred
and sixty-five feet ; but its true geometrical contents
must be much more. Young trees are now nursing
from the nuts which it bore three years ago ; and it

86 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

is to be hoped that their pedigree will be preserved,
as none can boast more ancient ancestry.

THE HORSE CHESNUT AT BURLEIGH.

The Horse Chesnut, we are informed by Evelyn,
was first brought from Constantinople to Vienna;
thence into Italy, and so to France : but more
immediately to us from the Levant. It is probable
that its introduction into England took place about
the year 1500 ; and so well has it liked its naturali-
zation, that it at present forms one of the chief
ornaments of our groves and parks. To the painter
the magnificence of its stature, and the beauty of its
broad palmated leaves, and long pendent spikes of
flowers scarcely atone for the exceeding regularity
of its form, terminating as it invariably does, when
left to the hand of nature, in an exact parabola.
Yet in the following description of it we can scarcely
wish for any thing to be altered : " On reaching
the village green, we cannot choose but pause before
this stately Chesnut Tree, the smooth stem of which
rises from the earth like a dark-coloured marble
column, seemingly placed there by art to support
the pyramidal fabric of beauty that surmounts it.
It has just put forth ts first series of rich fan-like
leaves, each family of which is crowned by its

THE CHESNUT. 87

splendid spiral flower ; the whole at this period of
the year forming the grandest vegetable object that
our kingdom presents, and vying in rich beauty with
any that Eastern woods can boast. And if we
could reach one of those flowers to pluck it, we
should find that the most delicate fair ones of the
garden or the green -house do not surpass it in elabo-
rate penciling and richly-varied tints. It can be
likened to nothing but its own portrait painted on
velvet." — Mirror of the Months, p. 69.

In the extraordinary specimen of this tree, which
is to be seen in the Court- yard of Burleigh House,
the ancient and highly interesting seat of the Mar-
quess of Exeter, all its beauties will be found exhi-
bited in their utmost perfection, without the draw-
back of a single disadvantage. From being enclosed
in a space comparatively confined, the formality of
its summit is exchanged for increased length of
stem ; the tree having shot up unusually high, most
likely in the endeavour to lift its head above the
surrounding walls, which at once shelter it from
injury, and impede that free play of the elements in
which the "native burghers of the forest" naturally
delight. Its branches, feathering down to the velvet
turf on which it stands, exhibit a delightful alter-
nation of milk-white flowers and russet fruits j whilst
the stately trunk displays an elegance and majesty,
which, combined with the venerable turrets that rise
around, filling the mind with recollections of the

88 SLYVA BRITANNICA.

Cecils and the Burleighs of former ages, render it an
object not to be looked upon without exciting feel-
ings in which tranquillity and admiration are most
pleasingly united.

The height of this fine tree is sixty feet, its cir-
cumference at four feet from the ground is ten feet ;
it contains three hundred feet of solid timber, and
its branches extend over an area of sixty-one feet in
diameter.

ANCIENT CHESNUT AT COBHAM.

This tree, called the FOUR SISTERS, from its four
branching stems closely combined in one massive
trunk, stands in the Heronry, in the finely wooded
Park at Cobhami Hall, the ancient seat of the
illustrious family of that name, so well known
in English History, and now the property of John
fourth Earl of Darnley. It is the noble remains
of a most magnificent tree; and though its head
has paid forfeit to the " skiey influences " during a
long succession of revolving seasons, yet it is not
left entirely stripped of ornament in its old age ; as
a number of tender shoots spring out of its topmost
branches, and still give it, by the lightness of their
foliage, an appearance of freshness, of which its aged
trunk would almost forbid the expectation. It is
thirty-five feet two inches in circumference at the

-/ft 5

THE CHESNUT. 89

ground, avoiding the spurs ; twenty-nine feet, at
three feet from the ground ; thirty-three feet at
twelve feet from the ground, and forty feet at the
point where the trunk divides. On looking at a tree
of this magnitude and antiquity, it is natural that
we should desire to know its exact age ; but this is
a point always of difficult and uncertain determina-
tion, unless some historical fact should give it chro-
nological precision. The common mode of judging
by the number of solar revolutions, or circles occa-
sioned by the bark of the preceding season being
digested and compacted into a ligneous substance,
and afterwards invested with a succeeding coat,
which is the next year to be converted in the same
manner into the substantial wood, is liable to inac-
curacy, on account of the earlier portion of the rings
becoming absorbed and indistinct by age ; nor is the
scale of comparison, with other trees of the same
species, more satisfactory ; for, as it has been re-
marked, the lives and stature of trees, like those of
animals, must vary with the situations in which they
are placed, and the accidents to which they may be
exposed. In general, the trees which in the end
obtain the greatest size, are the slowest in growth ;
it may therefore reasonably be inferred that the
age of our largest trees is often far beyond that as-
signed to them by obscure tradition or vague con-
jecture ; and it is not improbable that the " Four
Sisters" may have attained their tenth century.

90 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE FALLEN CHESNUT.

In Cobham Park, not far from the Four Sisters,
is one of those accidents of nature so pleasing to a
painter to meet with in his rambles, and so well
calculated to tempt the poetical imagination to mo-
ralise the spectacle " into a thousand similes."
" Delighting thus in trees," says an elegant writer,
who has withheld his name from the respect his
genius would secure to it, " I must more than others
grieve for their loss, and a storm awakens in me al-
most the fears of those whose friends are mariners.
I dread to see the shivered tops and the scattered
boughs. The great tree torn up by its roots, lying
in gigantic length, along the ground it yesterday
shaded, rending the green-sward into an unsightly
broken mound, showing the strong hold in the earth
which it had firmly grappled, now broken and for
ever destroyed — is to me a sight the most mournful :
it seems to me almost the overthrow of a living being
of power and might, so long had it stood erect and
nobly immoveable in the war of elements. The
pride of its foliage, the majesty of its leafy head,
now low in the dust, are indeed piteous to behold.
The storms it has so often braved, at last prevail,
and by one dread gust it falls before the breath of
heaven." With equal feeling, and still more strength,

THE CIIESNUT. 91

does Evelyn describe the effects of the lawless winds
which, on the 26th November, 1703, levelled at once
two thousand noble denizens of his beloved woods to
the earth, almost within sight of his own dwelling.
" In the mean while," says he, " as the fall of a very
aged oak, giving a crack like thunder, has been often
heard at many miles distance, constrained though I
often am to fell them with reluctance, I do not at any
time remember to have heard the groans of those
nymphs, grieving to be dispossessed of their ancient
habitations, without some emotion and pity. Me-
thinks that I still hear, sure I am that I still feel, the
dismal groans of our forests ; that late dreadful hurri-
cane having subverted so many thousands of goodly
oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly
postures, like whole regiments, fallen in battle by
the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that
grow beneath them." There is one reflection that
the sight of a tree thus laid low by Him whose
" wind bloweth where it listeth," must suggest to
the religious mind, that whether it " fall toward the
south or toward the north, in the place where the
tree falleth, there shall it lie ;" and if we bring this
reflection properly home to ourselves, and to our own
eternal state, as fixed on the same irrevocable prin-
ciple, we may indeed congratulate ourselves on
finding

tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons iti stones, and good in everything."

92 SYLVA BRITANN1CA.

THE LIME TREE.

" The Lime, at dewy eve,
Diffusing odours."

K Lime Tree, or Linden, is said to have been
introduced into England from Germany in the reign
of Elizabeth, by Sir John Spelman, to whom we
are also indebted for the introduction of the manu-
factory of paper. It is not, however, so much cul-
tivated in this as in many other countries, particu-
larly in Germany and Switzerland, where there are
some of the largest in the world ; and in Holland,
where they not only shelter and adorn the highways,
but are planted in many towns in even lines before
the houses, throughout the streets, filling the air
with the fragrance of their blossoms, and screening
the passengers from the sun, with the luxuriance of
their shade. It is peculiarly adapted for avenues,
from the straightness of its stem, and the luxuriant
spreading of its branches, which are likewise so
tough as to withstand the fury of gales that would

THE LIME TREE. 93

dismember most other trees. The red-twigged Lime
is preferable for this purpose in point of beauty, on
account of the pleasing spectacle which the red
twigs afford in the absence of its leaves.

The Lime Tree can accommodate itself to almost
any kind of ground ; but in a rich loamy soil it
grows with almost incredible swiftness, and spreads
to an amazing size. Evelyn thus describes some of
the giants of this species : " But here does properly
intervene the Linden of Schalouse in Swisse, under
which is a bower composed of its branches, capable
of containing three hundred persons sitting at ease :
it has a fountain set about with many tables, formed
only of the boughs, to which they ascend by steps,
all kept so accurately, and so very thick that the
sun never looks into it. But this is nothing to that
prodigious Tilia of Neustadt, in the Duchy of Wir-
temberg, so famous for its monstrosity, that even
the city itself receives a denomination from it, being
called by the Germans Neustadt ander grossen Linden,
or Neustadt by the great Lime Tree. The circum-
ference of the trunk is twenty-seven feet four fingers ;
the ambitus, or extent of the boughs, four hundred
and three fere; the diameter from south to north
one hundred and forty-five, from east to west one
hundred and nineteen feet; set about with divers
columns and monuments of stone, (eighty-two in
number at present, and formerly above a hundred
more,) which several Princes and Noble Persons

94 SYLVA BRITANNIC A:

have adorned, and celebrated with inscriptions, arms
and devices ; and which, as so many pillars, serve
likewise to support the umbrageous and venerable
boughs ; and that even the tree had been much
ampler, the ruins and distances of the columns de-
clare, which the rude soldiers have greatly im-
paired."— DISCOURSE ON FOREST TREES, p. 493.
edit. 1776.

Leaving, however, these " monstrosities," as
Evelyn styles them, we may turn with perhaps
more real interest to the beautiful specimen of

THE LIME TREE IN MOOR PARK,

Hertfordshire, the family seat of Robert Williams,
Esq.; a place venerable for its antiquity, and fa-
miliar to the lovers of gardening, by Sir William
Temple's eulogium on it, as affording in his time the
most perfect combination of garden elegance and
utility in England. This tree, standing upon a little
eminence, finely terminates a row of stately Limes
which bound one side of the Park, for more than
three quarters of a mile ; all of which are more
lofty, and some of larger girth than this ; but none
equalling it in luxuriance of shade, and redundancy
of branches, nineteen of which, almost rivalling the
parent stem, have, at about nine feet from the
ground, struck out in horizontal lines to the length
of from sixty-seven to seventy-one feet ; and from

THE CHESNUT. 95

six to eight feet in circumference ; bearing again in
their turn three or four upright limbs, like so many
young trees, and reminding the beholder of pros-
perous colonies, at once supported by, and adding to
the importance of their mother country. It must
have been some such object that suggested to the
fervid imagination of Milton his beautiful description
of the fig-tree.

" Such as at this day (to Indians known,

In Malabar or Deccan,) spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother- tree, a pillar'd shade
High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between :
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool and tends his past'ring herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade."

PARADISE LOST, B. 0, 1200.

The age of the Moor Park Lime tree is not exactly
known ; but it is at this present period in the most
vigorous state of luxurious growth, and has every
promise of attaining a much larger size. Its circum-
ference on the ground is twenty-three feet three
inches ; at three above, it is seventeen feet six
inches ; its branches extend one hundred and
twenty-two feet in diameter, and cover three hun-
dred and sixty feet in circumference. It is nearly
a hundred feet in height, and contains, by actual
measurement, eight hundred and seventy-five feet
of saleable timber

!K> SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE POPLAR.

Populus in fluviis.

VIRGIL.

THE Poplar may be classed among the aquatic
trees, though it will grow exceedingly well on
ground comparatively dry. There are many species
of the Poplar, the chief of which are the white, the
black, and the trembling, or aspen. Of these, the
Black Poplar is the most scarce in England ; it is
oftener to be found in Cheshire and Suffolk, than in
any other counties.

THE BLACK POPLAR AT BURY
ST. EDMUNDS

may probably challenge competition, both in size
and beauty, with any other individual of its kind in
the kingdom. It stands near the old monastic bridge,
which, with the little river Lark, that runs beneath

THE POPLAR. 97

it, reflecting the graceful branches of the Poplar in
its waters, forms an interesting picture, well calcu-
lated to attract the attention of the traveller, as he
enters the town, by the road from Norwich.

The height of this tree is ninety feet, and its cir-
cumference, at a yard from the ground, fifteen ; the
trunk rises forty-five feet, with but little diminution
in size, when it divides into a profusion of luxuriant
branches : its solid contents are five hundred and
fifty-one feet.

The Poplar may be regarded in every respect as
a classical tree. It was held sacred to Hercules by
the ancients ; and is celebrated by Homer, Virgil,
and Ovid. The latter speaks of the transformation
of the sisters of Phaeton into Poplars ; and the fic-
tion seems to wear almost the appearance of reality,
from the number of those trees that still flourish on
the banks of the Po in Italy, in the vicinity of the
ancient Eridanus, into which the ambitious cha-
rioteer is said to have been precipitated by Jupiter.
The Poplar, like other trees of the aquatic tribe,
copiously exudes the moisture which it imbibes ;
insomuch that, in hot calm weather, its foliage,
like that of the Willow, is additionally grate-
ful from the drops of water that hang upon its
leaves, with the refreshing coolness of a summer
shower ; and which, to a poetical imagination, like
that of Ovid, affords a lively picture of the tears of
Phaeton's sisters for his loss, completing the beauty
of the story which relates their metamorphosis.

98 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE WILLOW.

Viminibus salices foecundas.

VIRGIL.

IN" the class of Willow, the Withy, Sallow, and
Ozier, are included. Of them, as well as of the
Willow itself, there are many different species,
well known to planters, to whom each has its diffe-
rent uses : but in proportion as they are valuable to
the owners of moorish or marshy land, wherein they
chiefly delight to grow, they are disagreeable to the
eye of the painter, as they begin to be polled in the
third year of their growth, and their decapitated
trunks then present an unsightly spectacle, not
much improved when they again sprout forth. This
is particularly the case in Huntingdonshire, and
parts of the adjoining counties, where the uniformity
of the low, flat, and often inundated meadows, is
only broken by formal rows of Pollard Willows,
standing disconsolately by the sides of ditches, over
which they have no branches left to bend.

THE WILLOW. 99

Very different, however, are the feelings inspired
by the sight of a Weeping Willow, hanging in all its
natural luxuriance over some translucent stream,
which, regardless of the caresses of its dipping
foliage, reflects its image for a passing moment, and
flows on, the very emblem of carelessness and in-
constancy. The Willow, from time immemorial,
expressive of disappointed love, has furnished a
thousand beautiful allusions to our elder poets. Its
light and silvery foliage was supposed, in former
ages, to shed a mysterious influence around, grateful
to the votaries of Diana : this part of its reputation,
however, is, it should seem, exploded by the more
enlightened science of the present day, as we do- not
see it particularly resorted to, either for shade or
shelter. The Willow was held in the highest esti-
mation by the ancients, for its importance in the
service of husbandry ; on which account it was dedi-
cated by them to the Goddess Ceres.

We have, however, one sacred and solemn asso-
ciation with this tree, which the heathens could not
have ; and that is, the complaint of the captive
Israelites :

" By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down ; yea there we wept
when we remembered Zion.

" We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

" For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a
song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing
us one of the songs of Zion." — PSALM 137.

100 SYLVA BRITANNIC A.

THE ABBOT'S WILLOW

is of the species termed by botanists SalLv Alba,
and is probably for size and age unequalled in
the kingdom. Tt stands in the grounds of John
Benjafield, Esq. at Bury St. Edmund's, on a part
of the ancient demesne of the Abbot of Bury, and
which was in the actual possession of the Monastery,
at the time of its dissolution.

The author of that most pleasing work intitled
" The Journal of a Naturalist," observes that " the
Willow is so universally subjected to pollarding,
that probably few persons have ever seen a willow
tree. At any rate, a sight of one grown unmuti-
lated from the root is a rare occurrence. The few
that I have seen constituted trees of great beauty."
One, in particular, in the meadows on the right of
the Spa House at Gloucester, he remarks, is so
healthy and finely grown that it deserves every
attention, and should be preserved as a unique
specimen ; an example of what magnitude this
despised race may attain when suffered to proceed
in its own unrestrained vigour." — p. 398.

From the uncommon size of this tree, and its being
called " The Abbot," conjecture may lead us to sup-
pose that it was planted previously to the dispersion

THE WILLOW. 101

of the members of the far-famed and splendid
monastery, which took place in the reign of Henry
VIII. Of this, however, there is no certain proof;
but its vast dimensions plainly indicate it to have
been the growth of centuries. Notwithstanding
the great space its spreading branches occupy, it
has hitherto suffered but little, either from wind or
time, nor does it at present exhibit any symptoms of
decay. The soil around is certainly of a nature
genial to this class of aquatic trees ; for which, as
Evelyn observes, a bank at a foot distance from the
water, is kinder than a bog, or to be altogether im-
merseJ in the water; "for they love not to wet
their feet," and last the longer for being kept mode-
rately dry: nevertheless, the Abbot's Willow may
owe some of its freshness and vigour to a part of its
roots communicating with the bed of a small adjoin-
ing river, the Lark, on whose bank it stands, in the
vicinity of the Botanic Garden : an establishment to
which the town and neighbourhood of Bury St.
Edmund's are indebted for some of the most elegant
and instructive of their recreations, through the
exertions of Nathaniel Hodson, Esq., its proprietor ;
a gentleman whose diligent research in botanical
science, and general taste in all branches of natural
history, are already well known to the public.

The measurements of this tree, as taken by Mr.
Lenny, an able and accurate Surveyor at Bury, are
as follows : Its height is seventy-five feet : the cir-

102 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

cumference of the stem eighteen feet six inches.
The two principal limbs are fifteen and twelve feet
in circumference ; the ambitus of the boughs is two
hundred and four feet ; and it contains four hundred
and forty feet of solid timber.

" The Weeping Willow," says Gilpin, " is a very
picturesque tree. It is not, however, adapted to sub-
lime subjects. We wish it not to skreen the broken
buttresses and gothic windows of an abbey, nor
to overshadow the battlements of a ruined castle.
These offices it resigns to the oak, whose dignity can
support them. The weeping willow seeks a hum-
bler scene, some romantic footpath bridge, which it
half conceals, or some glassy pool, over which it
hangs its streaming foliage,

and dips

Its pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.

In these situations it appears in character, and of
course to advantage. Some willows, indeed, I have
thought beautiful, and fit to appear in the decoration
of any rural scene. The kind I have most admired
has a small narrow leaf, and wears a pleasant light
sea-green tint, which mixes agreeably with foliage
of a deeper hue. I believe the botanists call it
the Salix Alba" — REMARKS ON FOREST SCENERY,
Vol. I. p. 67.

THE CEDAR. 103

THE CEDAR.

The Cedar proud and tall.

SPENSER.

THE Cedar of Lebanon has been generally sup-
posed to be a native of Mount Libanus only ; but
modern travellers have found it on Mount Taurus
and other elevated situations in the Levant, and it is
so hardy, that it can easily adapt itself to any
climate. It has not been much cultivated in Eng-
land till of late years ; although its quick growth,
and its capability of thriving in a meagre soil, ren-
ders it peculiarly desirable for those bleak and
barren situations which have hitherto been princi-
pally devoted to the Fir.

The frequent and solemn allusions to the Cedar in
Holy Writ, seem to give it something of a sacred
character; which is increased by a knowledge of
the esteem in which it was held by the ancients, on
account of its fragrant scent, its incorruptible nature,
and above all, its durability, insomuch that it is re-

104 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

corded, that in the temple of Apollo at Utica, there
was found timber of Cedar nearly two thousand
years old.

It entered largely into the construction of the
most celebrated buildings of antiquity ; and in the
glorious temple of Solomon it seems to have been
recorded of it, as one of its proudest boasts, that " all
was cedar ; there was no stone seen."

THE ENFIELD CEDAR

stands in the garden of the Manor House, or old
Palace in Enfield, the occasional retirement of
Queen Elizabeth before she came to the throne, and
the frequent scene of her royal pleasures afterwards,
in the early part of her reign. In the year 1660 it
became the residence of the learned Doctor Uvedale,
master of the Grammar School of Enfield at that
time, and famous for his curious gardens and choice
collection of exotics. The Cedar, which is now per-
haps the largest in the kingdom, was put into the
ground by him, a plant brought direct from Mount
Libanus. In 1779 it measured fourteen feet six inches
at the base, and forty-five feet nine inches in height,
eight feet of the upper part having been broken off
by a high wind in 1703. The principal branches ex-
tended in length from the stem, from twenty-eight
to forty-five feet, and the contents of the tree, ex-

THE CEDAR. 105

elusive of the boughs, was about two hundred and
ninety-three cubic feet. In the night of the fifth of
November, 1794, it again suffered by a high wind,
which, blowing furiously from the north-west, de-
prived it of the principal top-branch, which fell
with a tremendous crash, and injured several of the
branches below in its fall. In 1821, Dr. May, its
present proprietor, and the able Master of the Gram-
mar School at Enfield, took its measurement, which
was as follows : seventeen feet in circumference at
one foot from the ground, sixty-four feet in perpen-
dicular height, and containing five hundred and
forty-eight cubic feet of timber, exclusive of the
branches, which from north-east to south-west ex-
tend eighty-seven feet, and contain about two hun-
dred and fifty feet of timber, making in the whole
nearly eight hundred cubic feet of timber.

Some years ago, this great ornament to Enfield
was destined to be cut down by a gentleman who
had purchased the spot on which it stood; but the
contemplation of its loss excited so much regret and
discontent among several of the most respectable
inhabitants in the place, that he was obliged to re-
linquish the barbarous design, even after the trench
was dug around it, the saw-pit prepared, and the
axe almost lifted up for its destruction. An account
of the whole proceeding, as well as a very minute
one of the tree itself, is to be found in Mr. Robin-
son's valuable and interesting History of Enfield.

106 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE GREAT CEDAR AT HAMMERSMITH.

This magnificent tree has every way a claim to
the title of Great, being at this time one of the
largest, the stateliest, and the most flourishing in
the kingdom. Its stem, at the ground, is sixteen
feet six inches in circumference, its height is fifty-
nine feet, and its branches cover an area of eighty
feet in diameter. When it is in the full prime of its
summer foliage, waving its rich green arms to the
gentle breezes, and hiding the small birds innume-
able in its boughs, it affords a fine exemplification of
the sublime description of the Prophet Ezekiel, in
his comparison of the glory of Assyria, in her " most
high and palmy state :"

" Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair
branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature,
and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him
great, the deep set him up on high, with her rivers running round
about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees
of the field.

" Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the
field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became
long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.

" All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and
under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their
young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.

" Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches:

I

THE CEDAR. 107

for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of
God could not hide him : the fir-trees were not like his boughs,
and the chesnut-trees were not like his branches ; nor any tree in
the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.

" I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so
that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied
him."— c. 31.

A fertile imagination might be led to suppose that
this noble tree had witnessed its princes, its heroes,
and its statesmen, holding their councils, and form-
ing their lofty projects under the shadow of its
branches. The house, with which it may probably
be coeval, and which appears to belong to the
Elizabethan order of architecture, was in later times
the residence of Oliver Cromwell, during the period
of the Protectorate ; and some who, dazzled by the
glare of false greatness, confound striking incidents
with grand ones, have been anxious to inspire ad-
ditional respect for the venerable walls, by assigning
to them the unenviable distinction of having had
the death-warrant of Charles the First signed within
them. Very different, at this time, are the pursuits
carried on, the consultations held in its once stately
council chamber. The house has been, the last half
century, devoted to the purposes of education : fair
and youthful forms supply the places of sour-visaged
puritans, and lank-haired Roundheads ; mandates
and treaties are turned into exercises and themes ;
and though the Cedar may still be made occasionally

108 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

the confidant of whispered plans of future greatness,
or visionary happiness, it is to be hoped it will never
again listen to the schemes of guilty ambition, or the
sighs of fruitless remorse.

THE CEDARS IN THE APOTHECARIES
GARDEN, CHELSEA.

These trees were planted, according to Dr.
Hunter, in his notes to Evelyn's Sylva, in 1683.
In 1774 they had attained a circumference of twelve
feet and a half, at two feet from the ground, while
their branches extended over a circular space forty
feet in diameter. Seven and twenty years after-
wards the trunk of the largest one had increased
more than half a foot in circumference ; this shows
the quickness of its growth in proportion to that of
the Oak, which, in the same period, would probably
not have made half that progress. Dr. Hunter
speaks of the branches hanging down nearly to the
ground, and affording thereby " a goodly shade in
the hottest season of the year." At present, how-
ever, these pendent branches are so for " curtailed
of their fair proportions" that they would afford no
more shade than might be desired when the sun is
just entering the vernal solstice; and indeed they
have of late years altogether drooped and languished,

I

.:••• . I

THE CEDAR. 109

owing, it has been conjectured, to the filling-up of a
neighbouring pond by which they were supposed to
be formerly nourished : but this is scarcely probable,
as the cedar naturally assimilates with a poor soil ;
and it is more likely that the real cause of the injury
done to these fine trees, as well as to all the other
productions of the spot on which they stand, a spot
rendered almost classical ground by the name of its
founder, Sir Hans Sloane, may be found in the
pestiferous vapour of the numerous gas-works by
which it is surrounded.

There is something in the air of the Cedar re-
markably indicative of its comparatively immortal
nature. The foliage is very beautiful : each branch
is perfect in its form ; the points of the leaves spread
upwards into little tufts, feathering the whole upper
surface of the branch, and drooping in graceful curves
towards the extremity, whilst the colour exhibits a
rich green, harmonizing between the blue tint of the
pine and fir, and the lurid and gloomy one of the
cypress. Its peculiarity in raising its boughs to sup-
port the load that 'may oppress them, is prettily
alluded to by the late talented Mrs. Franklin :

meek in power,

Her gentle spirit rose in danger's hour.
The cedar thus, when halcyon summer shines,
Graceful to earth its pendent boughs declines;
But when on Libanus the snows descend,
To meet the weight its rising branches bend."

110 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

THE PLANE TREE.

Virentis umbra sub platani.

CLAUDIAN.

THE Plane Tree is of comparatively modern intro-
duction into this country, which is said to be in-
debted for it to the great Lord Chancellor Bacon,
who probably procured the firstlings of the species
from Sicily, into which Island it was transplanted
from the Levant, and afterwards spread throughout
Italy, of which it has ever since formed the coolest
and most refreshing shades. It was held in the
highest estimation by the ancient Greeks and
Romans. We are told of Xerxes, that finding one
of extraordinary beauty and dimensions, he halted
his army to pitch his tent under its shade, bedecked
it with a golden chain in token of his admiration,
when he was compelled to proceed ; and afterwards
caused a golden medal to be struck, engraved with
the image of the tree, and which he wore ever after,
in remembrance of the pleasure he had felt in reposing

THE PLANE. Ill

beneath its balmy and luxuriant foliage. Among
the numerous acts of eccentricity attributed to
Xerxes, this is perhaps the only one which can be
dwelt upon with any view of placing his character
in an advantageous light, as it at least shows him to
have possessed a mind originally alive to the beau-
ties of nature, and retaining, in the midst of all
his luxury and excesses, sensibility enough to be
affected by them.

Homer mentions a sacrifice under a beautiful
Plane tree, xaToj OTTO 7rXaTav/<rr«>. The philosophical
conversations of Socrates are represented as passing
under its shade, and the academic groves, at the
very mention of which Plato and his disciples rise to
the enamoured fancy, were formed of its branches.
The Romans thought their most magnificent villas
imperfect unless they were sheltered by the lofty
and wide-spreading plane ; and the Turks, who
treat it with extraordinary reverence, plant it near
their dwellings, under the idea that it sheds a salu-
tary influence over the noxious vapours by which
the plague is generated. No part of Europe can
show such gigantic Planes as those in the neigh-
bourhood of Constantinople. They may be esteemed
next to the Cedars of Lebanon in dignity and dura-
bility. The precise age that the Plane tree will
attain, has never been exactly ascertained ; but if
we accept the testimony of Pausanias, who lived in
the middle of the second century, we shall scarcely

112 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

assign it a shorter period of duration than the Oak ;
for he tells us of one in Arcadia of extraordinary
size and beauty, supposed to have been planted by
Menelaus, the husband of the beautiful Helen,
about thirteen hundred years before the period when
he describes it as being in so much luxuriance and
vigour. There are two species of this tree, the
Oriental and the Occidental : they both love the
water, particularly the Occidental, which thrives
rapidly by the side of a stream ; and the size which
they attain in those soils where they nourish best,
introduces them to a still closer acquaintance with
the element they are so fond of, by rendering their
trunks fit for vessels and canoes, to which purpose
they are frequently applied.

THE PLANE TREE AT LEE COURT,

near Blackheath, is a beautiful specimen of the
Oriental kind. It waves its slender branches and
light clustering leaves over the stream of a small
rivulet, tempting the angler to seek its cooling
shade ; whilst within a few yards' distance, on
the opposite bank, stands the ancient residence
of the family of Bohun, thus described in the
journal of Evelyn. " Went to visit our good
neighbour Mr. Bohun, whose whole house is a
cabinet of all elegancies, especially Indian : in the

THE PLANE. 113

hall are contrivances of Japan skreens instead of
wainscot, and there is an excellent pendule clock,
enclosed in the curious flower- work of Mr. Gibbons,
in the middle of the vestibule. The landscapes of the
skreens represent the manner of living, and country
of the Chinese. But above all, his lady's cabinet is
adorned, on the fret, ceiling, and chimney piece, with
Mr. Gibbons' best carving. There are also some of
Streeter's best paintings, and many curiosities of gold
and silver, as growing in the mines. The gardens
are exactly kept, and the whole place very agree-
able and well watered." The tree itself is mentioned
in a subsequent passage. " Sept. 16. 1683. — At the
elegant villa and garden of Mr. Bohun's at Lee. He
shewed me the Zinnar tree, or Platanus, and told
me that since they had planted this kind of tree
about the city of Ispahan in Persia, the plague,
which formerly much infested the place, had ex-
ceedingly abated of its mortal effects, and rendered
it very healthy." — Evelyns Memoirs, Vol. i. p. 525.
Lee Court remains at present much in the state in
which it was during Evelyn's time; and the idea
of this Plane tree having been examined by him
with curiosity and interest, as one of the first intro-
duced into this country, is sufficient to give it value
in the eyes of all who are acquainted with his ad-
mirable genius and virtues, independent of the at-
traction which it may boast in its own beauty. —

u

114 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

The circumference of this tree at six feet from the
ground is fourteen feet eight inches ; it rises to the
height of about sixty-five feet, and contains three
hundred and one feet of timber.

It would be well if we could revive so much of
the veneration of the ancients for the Plane, as
might induce us, like them, to plant it round our
Schools and new Universities : our tiros in philo-
sophy might, by the powerful influence of association
of ideas, inhale under its branches some of the lofty
contemplations of their predecessors, practise them-
selves in the same habits of simplicity, and finally
arrive at the same height of intellectual and moral
excellence. Delightful indeed is it, as Horace says,

" Atque inter Sylvas Academi quaerere verum."

Neither the studies of the young, nor the peaceful
retreats of the aged, should ever be without those
breathing temples, those

" Long living galleries of aged trees,"
favourable alike to learning and to religion.

" In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
„ . Free from th' impediments of light and noise,

Man, thus retired, his nobler thoughts employs.

THE YEW. 115

THE YEW.

" The warlike yew, by which more than the lance,
The strong-arm'd English spirits conquer'd France."

DKAYTON.

THE Yew was formerly much esteemed in Eng-
land, when the cross-bow was in use. Spenser
praises it as

" The Eugh obedient to the bender's will ;"

and that it had merited the reputation for many
centuries, is evident from Virgil's mention of it for
the same purpose :

" Ityraeos Taxi torquenttir in arcus."

But as the use of fire-arms has superseded that of
the bow, and as the improvements in modern taste
have equally exploded the formal hedges and fan-
tastical figures, for which the Yew was highly prized
by the gardeners in Queen Elizabeth's time, it is no
longer cultivated as it was in former ages ; when it
was enjoined to be planted in all church-yards and

116 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

cemeteries : partly to insure its cultivation ; partly
to secure its leaves and seeds from doing injury to
cattle ; and partly because its unchanging foliage
and durable nature made it a fit emblem of immor-
tality ; whilst, at the same time, its dark green ren-
dered it not less aptly illustrative of the solemnity of
the grave.

The Yew-tree lives to a great age : indeed it can
scarcely ever be said to die, new shoots perpetually
springing out from the old and withered stock.

THE YEW TREE AT ANKERWYKE,

near Staines, the seat of John Blagrove, Esq., is
supposed to have flourished there upwards of a
thousand years. Tradition says, that Henry VIII.
occasionally met Anne Boleyn under the lugubrious
shade of its spreading branches, at such times as
she was placed in the neighbourhood of Staines, in
order to be near Windsor ; whither the king used to
love to retire from the cares of state. Ill-omened as
was the place of meeting under such circumstances,
it afforded but too appropriate an emblem of the
result of that arbitrary and ungovernable passion,
which, overlooking every obstacle in its progress,
was destined finally to hurry its victim to an un-
timely grave. It is more pleasing to view this tree
as the silent witness of the conferences of those

THE YEW. 1.17

brave barons who afterwards compelled King John
to sign Magna Charta, in its immediate vicinity,
between Runnymede and Ankerwyke House, than
as the involuntary confidant of loves so unhallowed
and so unblest as those of Henry and Anne Boleyn.
Both events, however, are happily alluded to in the
following lines :

" What scenes have pass'd, since first this ancient Yew
In all the strength of youthful beauty grew !
Here patriot Barons might have musing stood,
And plann'd the Charter for their Country's good;
And here, perhaps, from Runnymede retired,
The haughty John, with secret vengeance fired,
Might curse the day which saw his weakness yield
Extorted rights in yonder tented field.
Here too the tyrant Henry felt love's flame,
And, sighing, breathed his Anna Boleyn's name :
Beneath the shelter of this Yew-tree's shade,
The royal lover woo'd the ill-starr'd maid :
And yet that neck, round which he fondly hung,
To hear the thrilling accents of her tongue ;
That lovely breast, on which his head reclined,
Form'd to have humanized his savage mind ;
Were doom'd to bleed beneath the tyrant's steel,
Whose selfish heart might doat, but could not feel.
O had the Yew its direst venom shed
Upon the cruel Henry's guilty head,
Ere England's sons with shuddering grief had seen
A slaughter'd victim in their beauteous queen !"

The girt of this tree, at three feet from the ground,
is twenty-seven feet eight inches; at eight feet,

118 SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

thirty-two feet five inches. Immediately above the
latter height there are five principal branches, which
shoot out from a stem in a lateral direction ; the
girt of which are, five feet five inches ; six feet ten
inches ; five feet seven inches ; five feet seven inches ;
and five feet nine inches. Above these branches,
the trunk measures in the girt twenty feet eight
inches. At twelve feet from the ground various
branches proceed in every direction, aspiring to the
height of forty-nine feet six inches; and spreading
their umbrage to the circumference of two hundred
and seven feet.

THE YEW TREES AT FOUNTAINS
ABBEY.

These venerable Yew Trees stand on a small emi-
nence at Studley Royal, near Ripon, overlooking
the ruins of Fountains' Abbey, which celebrated
monastery was founded about the end of the year
1132, by Thurston, Archbishop of York, for certain
Monks, whose consciences being too tender to allow
them to indulge in the relaxed habits of their own
order, made them desirous of following the more
rigorous rule of the Cistercians, founded by the cele-
brated Saint Bernard, and then lately introduced
into England. Of the origin of Fountains' Abbey,
as the date of these Yew Trees is particularly con-

THE YEW. 119

nected with it, the following account from Burton
may not be deemed unacceptable :

" At Christmas, the Archbishop, being at Ripon,
assigned to the Monks some land in the patrimony
of St. Peter, about three miles west of that place,
for the erecting of a monastery. The spot of ground
had never been inhabited, unless by wild beasts,
being overgrown with wood and brambles, lying
between two steep hills and rocks, covered with
wood on all sides, more proper for a retreat for wild
beasts than the human species. This was called
Skeldale, that is, the vale of Skell, a rivulet running
through it from the west to the eastward part of it.
The Archbishop also gave to them a neighbouring
village called Sutton-Richard. The prior of St.
Mary's at York was chosen Abbot by the Monks,
being the first of this Monastery of Fountains; with
whom they withdrew into this uncouth desert, with-
out any house to shelter them in that winter season,
or provisions to subsist on, but entirely depending
on divine Providence. There stood a large Elm in
the midst of the vale, on which they put some thatch
or straw, and under that they lay, eat, and prayed ;
the bishop for a time supplying them with bread,
and the rivulet with drink. Part of the day some
spent in making wattles to erect a little oratory,
whilst others cleared some ground to make a little
garden. But it is supposed they soon changed the
shelter of their Elm for that of seven Yew Trees

120 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

growing on the declivity of the hill on the south side
of the Abbey, all standing at this present time, ex-
cept the largest, which was blown down about the
middle of the last century. They are of an extra-
ordinary size ; the trunk of one of them is twenty-
six feet six inches in circumference, at the height of
three feet from the ground, and they stand so near
each other as to form a cover almost equal to a
thatched roof. Under these trees, we are told by
tradition, the Monks resided till they built the Mo-
nastery ; which seems to be very probable, if we
consider how little a Yew Tree increases in a year,
and to what a bulk these are grown. And as the
hill side was covered with wood, which is now al-
most all cut down, except these trees, it seems as i t'
they were left standing to perpetuate the memory of
the Monks' habitation there during the first winter
of their residence."

There is something extremely captivating to the
imagination in the thought that these venerable trees
have witnessed the first rearing of the noble edifice,
on whose ruins they seem to look in sympathetic
decay. They may be imagined as addressing them —

" O our coevals, remnants of yourselves !

indeed, every thing connected with them is calcu-
lated to awaken the fancy of the poet and the painter,
and the reflections of the moralist.

In going from Pately Bridge towards Ripon, about

THE YEW. 121

three miles from the latter place, there is a road
across the fields, which leads the pedestrian through
a sequestered burial-ground belonging to a small
chapel, into a retired and beautifully wooded lane ;
at the bottom of which he is brought into full view,
all at once, of Fountains' Abbey : which by this
simple route strikes much more powerfully on the
feelings, than when gradually approached by the
more formal walks through the pleasure-grounds of
Studley. From the moment of beholding these mag-
nificent ruins, the spectator must be rapt in delight ;
now tracing the remains of the Abbey, its nave, its
transept, its cloisters, now turning to enjoy the
sweetly solemn effect of the general scene. The
Ash and Birch enliven by their foliage the dark
masses of shade thrown out by groups of Fir, Larch,
and Oak : the cliffs that rise around appear like na-
tural walls, affording a delightful variety of tint, and
shaded by ancient trees, whilst the tender saplings
spring from between the crevices. Part of the clois-
ters stretches over the Skell, which murmurs respon-
sive to the scene ; the arches cast a deep and dark
reflection on the water ; whilst about the ruins wave
lofty trees, tipped with light foliage, which is also
seen peeping in at the narrow pointed windows, as
they reflect the light from each other. Opposite to
this secluded spot is a small recess in the rocks, by
speaking from which a clear echo is returned in a few

122 SYLVA BRITANNICA.

seconds, as if it floated along the ruined choirs and
vaulted passages of the roofless Abbey. Inex-
pressibly interesting are these aerial sounds to the
imaginative ear! It should seem as if the spirits of
the cowled brethren still loved to linger in the haunts
so dear to them whilst they were in a state of mor-
tal existence — still loved to keep up a link of asso-
ciation with those who, themselves " warm in life,"
may have been treading just before on the ashes,
which, at the sound of human footsteps, again glowed
with their wonted fires. It did ind'eed seem the
voice of past ages,

" Vox et praeterea nihil :"

but how eloquent the response which calls up the
scenes and actors of so long a train of centuries gone
by ! It is such thoughts as these that invest the
venerable Yew Trees, the silent witnesses of the
changes of time, and the decays of nature, with so
much interest, and renders their preservation so de-
sirable. They do not, however, appear to be treated
with the reverence due to them : a low wall hides
their weather-beaten boles on the side whence they
would otherwise be seen to the most advantage, and
a paltry little stable is erected almost beneath their
branches ; on which, worst injury of all, the marks
of the despoiling axe are but too visible, and the
ground underneath is strewed with fragments of

THE YEW. 123

larger limbs, probably torn away for petty purposes,
to which meaner wood might have been applied with
equal utility.

It is unfortunate for the Yew tree that " the days
of chivalry are past." A pure native of Britain, it
was formerly that basis of its strength which the oak
is now. It was the boast of the old English yeoman, ,
that his long-bow, made from its branches, could be
bent by none but an English arm ; and we find it
mentioned by all our older poets with the respect
due to its being associated in their mind with ideas
of knightly valour,

" Of sallies and retires; of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, fortins, parapets ;
Of basilisks, of cannon, culvenir,
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain."

But now its " occupation's gone !" the " cannon "
and the " culverin " have superseded the arrow's
fateful flight, and the Yew, no longer called for in
the field of battle, takes peaceful refuge in the
library, or the boudoir, under some of the orna-
mental forms for which it is peculiarly fitted by its
susceptibility of polish, and the variegated beau-
ties of its surface.

124 SYLVA BR1TANNICA.

THE MAPLE.

- Acerque coloribus impar.

The maple, stain'd with various hues."

OVID.

THE small or common Maple is very inferior in
size to the Sycamore, or greater Maple; but the
timber is much more valuable ; and is held in the
highest estimation by turners and cabinet-makers,
on account of the exquisite beauty of veining which
it frequently presents. The wood of the Maple is
also much prized for musical instruments, on account
of its lightness ; and the tree itself yields a sap which
upon evaporation will leave sugar as perfect in quali-
ty as that of the cane, though inferior in point of
quantity. The ancients held the Maple in the great-
est esteem ; and tables inlaid with curious portions
of it, or formed entirely of its wood when finely
variegated, fetched prices which, even to the manu-
facturers of the buhl furniture of modern times, would

THE MAPLE. 125

appear unconscionable and incredible. Virgil erects
his throne for " the good Evander" of Maple, inlaid
with ivory : and Pliny gives an elaborate account of
its properties and value. The Maple rarely attains
any considerable size : " We seldom see it em-
ployed," says Gilpin, " in any nobler service than
in filling up its part in a hedge in company with
thorns, briars, and other ditch trumpery." In this
situation its value seems to be judged by the com-
pany it keeps, and to whose level it is generally re-
duced by the indiscriminating bill of the hedger.
Nevertheless, when it is spared to attain its full size,
it is beautiful in its character, if not dignified ; and is
capable of being made highly ornamental. " It is
the earliest sylvan beau that is weary of its sum-
mer suit, first shifting its dress to ochrey shades,
then trying a deeper tint, and lastly assuming an
orange vest. When first the Maple begins to autum-
nize the grove, the extremities of the boughs alone
change their colour, but all the internal and more
sheltered parts still retain their verdure, which gives
to the tree the effect of a great depth of shade, and
displays advantageously the light lively colouring of
the sprays." The constant excoriation of the bark
also produces a variety of hues, which render the
introduction of it very favourable to effect in land-
scape.

126 SLYVA BRITANNICA.

THE MAPLE IN BOLDRE CHURCH-
YARD

is ten feet in circumference at the ground, and at four
feet, seven feet six inches ; at twelve feet, the trunk
divides into branches ; and the entire height of the
tree is about forty-five feet. This is considered the
largest Maple in England, and is mentioned as such
by Gilpin.

It is not however solely from consideration of its
size that it is introduced in these pages, but also from
a desire on the part of the author to pay a tribute of
well-deserved respect to the memory of so excellent
and accomplished a man, as him by whom it has
been chronicled ; the late Rev. William Gilpin ;
who, after fulfilling his duties in the most exem-
plary manner for twenty years, as rector of the
parish of Boldre, chose for his last resting-place this
sweet sequestered spot, under the very tree he has
given interest to by his record of it, and amidst the
scenes he so much loved, and so well described :
thus realizing the wish of Bloomfield, that favoured,
though lowly votary of the rural Muse,

" O Heaven permit that I may lie

Where o'er my corse green branches wave ;
And those who from life's tumults fly,
With kindred feelings press my grave."

Nor can a work professing to illustrate Forest See-

-i?a

THE MAPLE. 127

nery, and to draw the attention of the reader to the
pure and exalted pleasures which a love of nature
inspires, conclude the portion of it which belongs to
England better than with a tribute of respect to a
name so connected with its object, and adorned with
so many virtues as that of GILPIN.

TO

JOHN MAXWELL, ESQ.
OF POLLOC,

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE COUNTY OF RENFREW,

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
THE PORTION OF THIS WORK ENTITLED

THE

SYLVA SCOTICA;

WITH THE HOPE THAT IT MAY AT ONCE PERPETUATE THE
REMEMBRANCE OF SOME OF HIS

FAVORITE TREES,

AND THE ESTEEM IN WHICH HIS PATRIOTISM AND

BENEVOLENCE ARE HELD BY
HIS OBLIGED FRIEND AND SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

SYLVA SCOTICA.

SCOTLAND is, in every respect, too interesting and
too important a portion of Great Britain, to be passed
over in any work illustrative of national topography;
and though it cannot in the present day be deemed,
as it was in former ages, a thickly-wooded country,
yet the specimens of Forest Scenery, which it af-
fords in particular districts, are so grand and impres-
sive, and many of the individual trees, of different
species, so remarkable, and attended with so many
" spirit-stirring " associations, that a much larger
portion of this work might have been devoted to the
illustration of them, had it not already nearly at-
tained its destined limits ; even whilst the author
still found subjects of beauty and interest, in every
part of the kingdom, continally awakening his admi-
ration ; and soliciting, nay, demanding his attention
by attractions which he could not have resisted, had
he not determined to carry his present undertaking
no farther than the boundary he originally prescribed

132 SYLVA SCOTICA.

to it, when he first solicited that encouragement in
its support, which he now has gratefully to acknow-
ledge having been favoured with, beyond his most
sanguine hopes. Under these circumstances, he
trusts, that in devoting the concluding part of the
SYLVA BKITANNICA to the trees of North Britain,
he shall be considered as paying the tribute of his
respect not only generally to

" A country famed for industry and song,"

but also more particularly to those public-spirited
noblemen and gentlemen, among the foremost of
whom he would reckon him to whom his feelings of
admiration and esteem have led him to dedicate this
portion of his work, who are daily consulting the in-
terests of posterity by clothing their native hills with
rich plantations, and carrying into execution every
benevolent and patriotic scheme that can increase
the sum of human happiness, and raise man in the
scale of intellectual being.

Ancient Caledonia was, as the name implies, al-
most one vast forest. Many of the bleak moors and
mosses which now disfigure the face of the coun-
try, and produce only barren heath, were formerly
clothed with woods, that furnished useful timber
and excellent pasturage. " During the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries," says Chalmers, " not only the
kings, but the bishops, barons, and abbots, had their
forests in every district of North Britain, in which

SYLVA SCOTICA. 133

they reared infinite herds of cattle, horses, and
swine. There are in the maps of Scotland, a thou-
sand names of places which are derived from woods
which no longer exist on the face of the country ;
and there are in the Chartularies numerous notices
of forests, where not a tree is now to be seen."
It would be as easy to trace the causes of the
decay of Scottish woods, as it is to prove that they
formerly existed : devastating wars, and the im-
provident and wasteful consumption of wood for
fuel, as well for salt works as for domestic pur-
poses, would sufficiently account for the thinning
and final extinction of vast tracts of forest land,
which when once denuded, the unsettled habits of
the country in early times did not allow of restoring
by planting. But the object of this work is to pre-
serve individual remains, rather than go into general
inquiries : it therefore only remains to remark, that
under the spirited exertions of such planters as the
Duke of Athol, the Duke of Montrose, Lord Moray,
and many others, the hills of Scotland must in time
be clad in all their ancient magnificence, with

" trees of various shade,

Scene behind scene with fair delusive pomp,"

and the country enriched by those generous bene-
factors who seek no selfish gratification, beyond the
•conscious pleasure of having performed a disinter-
ested duty.

134 SYLVA SCOTICA.

THE WALLACE OAK.

THERE is perhaps no name in the annals of Scot-
land more justly celebrated than that of Wallace;
one of the bravest of her heroes, and most disinte-
rested of her patriots. Hence his steps are pointed
out, wherever they can be traced, with almost re-
ligious reverence : the mountain path which he may
have tracked, the headlong torrent which he may
have crossed, the rugged fastness in which he may
have intrenched himself, still bear his name in many
parts of the country, and still invite the wanderings
and charm the imagination of those who are capable
of feeling the force of the sublime sentiment —

" Dulce et decorum est pro patria rnori."

Among the memorials to the fame of Wallace
which the gratitude of posterity has delighted to
point out, the trees under which he is known to
have reposed or encamped, have been treated with
a degree of attachment which, defeating its aim in
its excess, has ultimately caused the destruction
of the object it wished to commemorate. Hence the
famous Oak in Torwood is no longer remaining. It
stood in the middle of a swampy moss, having a
causeway round it ; but the last fragments of its
ruins have been carried off by the pilgrims whom its
fame attracted, and only the spot on which it stood

THE OAK. 135

now remains for them to pay their devotions to. Of
Earnside Wood, where Wallace defeated the Eng-
lish, on the 12th June, 1298, and which formerly
stretched four miles along the shores of the Frith,
not a vestige is left ; and in the same manner, many
other individual trees and woodland tracts, once
rendered interesting by being associated with the
valiant darings and hair-breadth scapes of Wallace,
have bowed before the warring elements, or the un-
pitying axe. One Oak which bears his name still
however survives, and is perhaps more interesting
than any of those we may otherwise lament, on ac-
count of its standing immediately at the place of his
birth, which was Ellerslie, or Elderslee, three miles
to the south-west of Paisley, in Renfrewshire. It is
mentioned by Semple, in his " Continuation of
Crawfurd's History of Renfrewshire," as " the large
Oak tree, which is still standing alone, in a little en-
closure, a few yards south from the great road between
Paisley and Kilbarchan ; being on the east side of
Elderslee rivulet, where there is a stone bridge with
one arch, the manor of Elderslee being a few yards
distant from the rivulet on the west side. They say
that Sir William Wallace and three hundred of his
men hid themselves upon that tree, among the
branches, (the tree being then in full blossom,)
from the English. The tree is indeed very large,
and well spread in the branches, being about twelve
feet in circumference." p. 260. 4to. 1782. The pre-

13G SYLVA SCOTICA.

sent dimensions of the Wallace Oak, as communi-
cated by Mr. Macquisten, an accurate land-sur-
veyor, are twenty-one feet in circumference at the
ground ; and at five feet from it, thirteen feet two
inches. It is sixty-seven feet in height, and its
branches extend on the east side to forty-five feet,
on the west to thirty-six, on the south to thirty, and
on the north to twenty-five, covering altogether an
extent of nineteen English, or fifteen Scotch poles,
land-measure. According to the testimony of aged
residents in the neighbourhood, the branches of this
tree, about thirty years ago, covered above a Scotch
acre of ground ; and one old person pointed out a
spot on the ancient turnpike road, forty yards north
from the trunk of the tree, where he said that, when
young, he used to strike the branches with his stilt.
The Wallace Oak seems destined, in sharing the fame
of others of its brethren, who have been honoured by
sheltering the hero Wallace, to share their fate like-
wise of despoliation : every year its branches pay
tribute to its renown, and the western Highlanders,
in particular, carry off relics from it in abundance
which threatens extinction, at no very distant period,
to the parent stem, unless it be protected from fur-
ther violence by its present owner, Archibald Spiers,
Esq. of Elderslie, M.P. who may not be quite aware
of the extent to which ravages are committed upon
it through the good feeling, though mistaken judg-
ment, of the majority of its visitants.

THE SYCAMORE. 137

THE SYCAMORE

is a species of the Maple : in favorable situations
it attains to a considerable stature, and will re-
main a long time in a state of perfection. Evelyn
accuses it of contaminating the walks, wherein it
may be planted, with its leaves, which, like those
of the Ash, fall early, and putrefy with the first
moisture of the season. This great Oracle of the
Forests therefore remarks, that with his consent it
should be banished from all curious gardens and
avenues, though he acknowledges that for more dis-
tant plantations it is desirable ; particularly where
better timber will not prosper so well, as in places
near the sea ; it being no way injured by the spray,
which is so prejudicial to most trees. The frequent
allusions to the Sycamore in Holy Writ, show how
much it was cultivated in divers parts of Asia.
Zaccheus climbed up into a Sycamore tree to see
our Saviour ride in triumph to Jerusalem ; and we
are told by St. Hierom, who lived in the fourth cen-
tury after Christ, that he had himself seen this same
tree ; a. sufficient evidence of the length of time
which it will stand without decay. It is said of
Solomon, among his other meritorious deeds, that
" Cedars made he to be as the Sycamore trees that
are in the vale, for abundance," 1 Kings x. 27. In

138 SYLVA SCOTICA.

his father David's time, an officer is mentioned as
being appointed to superintend " the olive trees,
and the sycamore trees that were in the low plains,"
1 Chron. xxvii. 28. And the royal Psalmist, in re-
counting the marks of the Almighty's displeasure
against the Israelites, includes his destroying " their
Sycamore trees with frost." It is probably from
associations of this kind that it has been planted
more frequently near religious edifices than in other
situations.

THE SYCAMORE AT BISHOPTON,

in Renfrewshire, is the property of Sir John Max-
well, Bart. It is a stately spreading tree, twenty
feet in circumference at the ground, about sixty feet
in height, and contains seven hundred and twenty
feet of solid timber. It stands on the banks of the
Clyde, on the opposite side of which the insulated
rock of Dumbarton rises in solitary majesty, crowned
with its strong fortress, of little use in " these weak
piping times of peace," but once deemed the " Key
of Scotland ;" and still exciting a melancholy inte-
rest as the place where Wallace, that hero dear alike
to the sober page of history, and the wilder graces
of tradition, was delivered up to his enemies by the
treachery of a pretended friend.

The Sycamore was little known in this country,
even so late as the 17th century. Chaucer speaks

.

THE SYCAMORE. 139

of it as a rare exotic in the 14th century : Gerard,
who wrote in 1597, says, " The great maple is a
stranger in England, only it groweth in the walks
and places of pleasure of noblemen, where it especi-
ally is planted for the shadowe sake, and under the
name of Sycomore tree." And Parkinson, speaking
of the same, in 1(J40, says, " It is no where found
wilde, or naturall in our land, that I can learn, but
only planted in orchards or walkes, for the shadowe's
sake." At present, however, it is to be found in all
parts of the kingdom, especially in Scotland, where
it grows to a great size, wearing an undaunted as-
pect, and throwing out its bold arms, as if in defiance
of the utmost inclemency of the skies.

Perhaps the largest tree in North Britain is to be
found at Kippenross, in Perthshire. Of its age the
Earl of Marr communicated the following anecdote
to Mr. Monteath, the intelligent author of " The
Forester's Guide." " Mr. John Stirling, of Keir,
who died in 1757, and made many enquiries of all
the old people from eighty to ninety years of age,
which takes us back to the reign of Charles II.,
near the Restoration : they uniformly declared, that
they have heard their fathers say that they never
remember any thing about it, but that it went by
the name of the big tree of Kippenross."

140 SYLVA SCOT1CA.

THE WYCH ELMS AT POLLOC.

THIS graceful group of Wych Elms stands on the
banks of the river Cart; at Police, in Renfrewshire,
just beneath the site of the castle, occupied by the
ancestors of Sir John Maxwell, Bart., the present
proprietor, since the forfeiture of the Earl of Niths-
dale, about the middle of the thirteenth century,
chief of the family of Maxwell.

The principal tree in this group is of extraordi-
nary health and vigour, and does not exhibit the
slightest appearance of decay ; it is completely
covered with foliage, and its leaves, instead of being
small, as is generally the case in old trees, are large
and luxuriant ; it still sends forth its tribute of new
shoots annually to the spring, and continues to in-
crease both in height and girth. In 1812, it was
ten feet ten inches in circumference at five feet
from the ground ; in 1824, it measured eighteen feet
one inch in circumference, at the surface of the
ground, and eleven feet ten inches at five feet from
the ground : its height is eighty-eight feet, and it
contains six hundred and sixty-nine feet of solid
timber.

THE FIR. 141

THE FIR.

THOUGH the Fir will grow in all parts of the
kingdom, and is as useful in clothing the barren
wolds of Yorkshire as the rugged mountains of Scot-
land, it perhaps no where attains such perfection as
in the latter country ; particularly in those situations
in the Highlands where it is most exposed to a
northern aspect : for in proportion to the tardiness
of its vegetation, in consequence of the little influ-
ence of the sun upon it for months together, it
completes by slow and sure degrees the health and
strength of its timber far beyond that which is nur-
tured to prematurity of stature in richer soils and
warmer situations.

This remark may be applied to all other timber
trees as well as to the Fir. Pliny observes, that
such as grow in moist and sheltered places are not
so close, compact, and durable, as those which are
more exposed. And Homer, who like Shakspeare
had read the book of nature as well as that of hu-
manity, judiciously assigns to Agamemnon a spear
formed of a tree which had braved the fury of the
tempest : he also puts into the mouth of Didymus
the express reason for this choice ; " because," says
he, " it becomes harder and tougher in proportion
as it is weather-beaten."

142 SYLVA SCOTICA.

THE FIR IN DUNMORE WOOD,

Stirlingshire, the property of the Earl of Dunmore,
perhaps the largest in the Lowlands of Scotland, is
fully as remarkable for its beauty as for its magni-
tude ; affording a very pleasing specimen of the cha-
racteristic form of its species. It is sixty-seven feet in
height; eleven feet three inches in girth at the ground,
and ten feet three inches at seventeen feet from it.
The quantity of solid timber which it contains is two
hundred and sixty-one feet, leaving out of the mea-
surement all branches below six inches in diameter:
its age is not known, though that of the Fir in
general may be ascertained by the grain of the
wood, which appears distinctly in circles, annually
formed from the centre to the fork. " Upon cutting
a tree close to the root," says Mr. Farquarson, of
Marlee, in a letter to Dr. Hunter of York, " I can
venture to point out the exact age, which in these
old Firs comes to an amazing number of years. I
lately pitched upon a tree of two feet and a half
diameter, which is near the size of a planted Fir of
fifty years of age ; and I counted exactly two hun-
dred and fourteen circles or coats, which makes this
natural Fir above four times the age of the planted
one."

Notwithstanding the remarks that have been made

•*J(K*«.

THE FIR. 143

on timber in general being valuable in proportion to
the length of time it has taken to acquire its perfec-
tion, it must be acknowledged that the readiness
with which the Fir may be forced to speedy growth
is an advantage in many respects. Evelyn men-
tions one which " did shoot no less than sixty feet
in height, in little more than twenty years :" he,
therefore, who may be waiting impatiently to see
his newly-erected mansion enveloped in the graceful
shade and salutary shelter which only stately trees
can give, will do well to cultivate

" Cedar, and Pine, and Fir, and branching Palm :"

though even then he must not expect that his ave-
nues will display the dignity of ages afforded by the
Oak, — that truly patrician tree, emphatically termed
by the Chinese " the tree of inheritance," which
testifies so independently to the antiquity of the
property which it may adorn. Nobility has been
defined " ancient riches ;" and assuredly one of the
most convincing outward signs of " ancient riches"
is ancient timber ; as proud a badge of distinction
to its proprietors as any that can be afforded by
blazoned shields or storied urns, and a more de-
sirable one, as allowing others to participate in the
enjoyment of it, and inspiring only ideas of tran-
quillity and usefulness.

144 SYLVA SCOTICA.

THE SILVER FIR AT ROSENEATH.

THE Silver Female Fir is the most beauteous and
graceful of all its numerous tribe. It is common in
the mountainous parts of Scotland, where, as Evelyn
justly observes, " are trees of wonderful altitude,
which grow upon places so inaccessible and far from
the sea, that, as one says, they seem to be planted
by God on purpose for nurseries of seed, and moni-
tors to our industry ; reserved, with other blessings,
to be discovered in our days, amongst the new-
invented improvements of husbandry, not known to
our southern people of this nation. Did we consider
the pains they take to bring them out of the Alps,
we should less stick at the difficulty of transporting
them from the utmost parts of Scotland."

The Silver Fir represented in the plate, is the pro-
perty of his Grace the Duke of Argyll. It is about
ninety feet in height. In girth it is twenty-two feet
four inches at one foot from the ground, and seven-
teen feet five inches at five feet from the ground.
Its solid contents are estimated at six hundred and
nineteen cubic feet ten inches ; but this calculation
is probably only an approximation to the truth. The
age of the tree is unknown : the introduction of the
Silver Fir into Scotland is however commonly un-
derstood to have taken place two hundred and

44.

-*

•

li ' •

"

THE FIR. 145

twenty years since, which period corresponds very
well with the size of this tree, when compared with
others of the same species, the ages of which are
known. Evelyn mentions two Silver Firs in Hare-
field Park, Middlesex, " that being planted there
anno 1603, at two years' growth from the seed, are
now (1679) become goodly masts. The biggest of
them from the ground to the upper bough is eighty-
one feet, though forked on the top, which has not a
little impeded its growth. The girth or circumfe-
rence below is thirteen feet, and the length, so far as
is timber, that is, to six inches square, seventy-three
feet. In the middle seventeen inches square, amount-
ing by calculation to one hundred and forty-six feet
of good timber."— Sylva, p. 204. edit. 1776.

This quickness of growth is only one of many re-
commendations in this beautiful species of Fir : but
it is one of great importance in regard to planting it
in avenues, and near houses ; for which it is equally
calculated by the graceful stateliness of its form,
and the beauty of its foliage, presenting on one
side the bright green of the emerald, and on the
other a delicate relief of silvery stripes, which, when
agitated by the wind, gives it an agreeable variety of
appearance.

1-K> SYLVA SCOTICA.

THE LARCHES AT DUNKELD.

THE LARCH is a native of the Alps and Apennine
mountains, and has not been introduced into this
country more than a century. It is of quick growth,
and flourishes best in poor soils and exposed situa-
tions, which renders it valuable in those places,
where land is of little other value than to afford foot-
ing for such hardy mountaineers.

The Larches represented in the accompanying
plate, are the property of his Grace the Duke of
Athol, and are supposed to be the largest in Scot-
land : they were brought into the country about
ninety years since, and were at first placed in a
green-house, under the idea that they were tender
shrubs. The largest of them was measured in the
month of March, 1 796, and its dimensions were as
follows. At three feet from the ground, ten feet and
a half in circumference ; at twenty-four feet from
the ground, seven feet seven inches ; its height
eighty-five feet. In July 1825, it was measured
again, and at the same distances from the ground, it
was found to be thirteen feet, and nine feet five
inches in circumference, and had increased in height
to ninety-seven feet and a half. These graceful
trees are surrounded by objects of the most interest-
ing nature, their branches almost touch the vene-

,

THE LARCH. 147

rable remains of the Abbey of Dunkeld, whilst the
bleak and barren hill which was once Birnham wood
rises behind in the distance, and fills the imagination
of the spectator with poetic feeling ; with thoughts
of Macbeth, and Dunsinane, and of that master
spirit who could thus give to airy nothings

A local habitation and a name,

that should make the lapse of centuries appear as
moments only — so freshly does all he has ever
described rush into the mind, whenever the scenes
he has chosen for his actions present themselves to
the eye.

With the Thane of Cawdor, the writer of this
article might say, whilst he was exploring the
beauties of Dunkeld, " So foul and fair a day I have
not seen," for it was one of incessant rain, which
yet had no power to veil the enchantments of the
scene, or to restrain his steps in quest of them;
never, indeed, did he find " the wildly devious
walk" more delightful than that which he took alone,
on the banks of the Tay, by one of the most silent,
solemn, and sequestered paths that he had ever
trodden. The freshness of the woods, the murmur-
ing of the river, the noble aspect of the hills, pre-
senting new features at every winding of the road,
and arrayed in sober purple, or the deepest azure,
filled his mind with admiration and delight, undis-
turbed by any trace of man, except what was here

148 SYLVA SCOTICA.

and there afforded by a solitary corn-field, with its
sheaves still standing, or a lonely cottage perched at
some angle of a rock. As he retraced his steps, the
grey tower of the ruined cathedral, bosomed in
woods, and overhung by lofty hills purpled with
heath, the few houses of the town clustering around
it, and the broad river, winding along the valley,
with his majestic, though modern bridge, formed a
picture which nothing could have prevented him
from sketching but the torrents of rain, that would
have rendered the sketch illegible ; and which no-
thing could have consoled him for leaving, without
even an attempt to fix it, but the hope that he might
at some future period revisit it, under circumstances
more favorable to the lengthened contemplation of
its beauties, which their variety and richness de-
served.

THE FORTINGAL YEW

is one of the largest and oldest trees in Scotland :
it stands in the Church-yard of Fortingal, or the
Fort of the Strangers, so called from its being in
the vicinity of a small Roman camp ; a wild ro-
mantic district lying in the heart of the Grampian
Mountains, comprehending Glenlyon and Rannoch,
abounding in lakes, rivers, and woods, and formerly
inhabited by that lawless tribe of freebooters, who,

THE FIR. 149

setting the civil power at defiance in th'e intricacy of
their fastnesses, laid all the surrounding country
under that species of contribution so well known
at the time it was exacted, by the name of Black-
mail.

This prodigious tree was measured by the Hon.
Judge Barrington, before the year 1770, and is
stated by him to have been at that time fifty-two
feet in circumference ; but Pennant describes it as
measuring fifty-six feet and a half. The same
elegant tourist also speaks of it as having formerly
been united to the height of three feet ; Captain
Campbell, of Glenlyon, having assured him that
when a boy, he had often climbed over the con-
necting part. It is now however decayed to the
ground, and completely divided into two distinct
stems, between which the funeral processions were
formerly accustomed to pass. It is impossible to
ascertain its age; but judging from its present state
and appearance, it is not too much to suppose that
its date is contemporary with that of Fingal himself,
whose descendants the Highlanders in its vicinity
are fond of styling themselves.

150 SYLVA SCOTICA.

THE ASH AT CARNOCK.

THIS beautifully luxuriant tree -

. " far spreading his umbrageous arm,"

almost embraces the venerable mansion near which
it stands. It is the property of Sir Michael Shaw
Stewart, and is supposed to be the largest in Scot-
land, even when measured at the smallest part
of the trunk. Its dimensions in July 1825, at the
time that the drawing of it was taken, were as
follows : — ninety feet in height ; thirty-one feet in
circumference at the ground ; nineteen feet three
inches, at five feet from the ground ; and twenty-
one feet six inches, at four feet higher up. At ten
feet from the ground it divides into three large
branches, each of which is ten feet in circum-
ference ; and their length is twenty-seven, twenty-
eight, and thirty feet. The solid contents of the
tree are six hundred and seventy-nine cubic feet.
It was planted about the year 1596, by Sir
Thomas Nicholson of Carnock, in Stirlingshire,
Lord Advocate of Scotland in the reign of James
VI. It is at the present period in full vigour
and beauty, combining airy grace in the light-
ness of its foliage and the playful ramifications
of its smaller branches, with solidity and strength

THE ASH. 151

in its silvery stem and principal arms. Delight-
ful indeed is it to contemplate the variety and
surpassing beauty of many of these " houses not
built with hands," proclaiming to the viewless winds,
the eyes of heaven, and the heart of man, the wis-
dom and the love of the Eternal Architect, whose
fiat calls them into existence, and whose benevolence
wills them to live for ages. Nor is it without regret
that the Author sees himself arrived at the end of a
task so congenial to his feelings, as that of comme-
morating some of those silent but happy " inheritors
of the earth," to which the shorter-lived habitants of
it owe so much both of profit and enjoyment. Never-
theless, he rejoices in the opportunity his work has
afforded him, of consecrating to his native country a
trophy illustrative of her woodland treasures, her
pride, her ornament and defence ; a trophy which
he would fain offer up to her as expressive of his
ardent wishes for the continuance of her prosperity
and happiness, and that they may endure and
flourish, for ages to come, in the full spirit of the
Scriptural blessing,—

" As the days of a tret are the days of my people."

FINIS.

PRINTED BY A. J. VALPY,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON.

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